Sample records for based access control

Devices, systems, and methods for role-basedaccesscontrol permissions are disclosed. One method includes a policy decision point that receives up-to-date security context information from one or more outside sources to determine whether to grant access for a data client to a portion of the system and creates an access vector including the determination; receiving, via a policy agent, a request by the data client for access to the portion of the computing system by the data client, wherein the policy agent checks to ensure there is a session established with communications and user/application enforcement points; receiving, via communications policy enforcement point, the request from the policy agent, wherein the communications policy enforcement point determines whether the data client is an authorized node, based upon the access vector received from the policy decision point; and receiving, via the user/application policy enforcement point, the request from the communications policy enforcement point.

In order to realize the accesscontrol of wireless gateway and improve the accesscontrol of wireless gateway devices, an accesscontrol mechanism of SDN architecture which is based on Open vSwitch is proposed. The mechanism utilizes the features of the controller--centralized control and programmable. Controller send accesscontrol flow table based on the business logic. Open vSwitch helps achieve a specific accesscontrol strategy based on the flow table.

This paper discusses the realization of mandatory accesscontrol in role-based protection systems. Starting from the basic definitions of roles, their application in security and the basics of the concept of mandatory accesscontrol, we develop a scheme of role-based protection that realizes mandatory accesscontrol. The basis of this formulation develops from the recognition that roles can be seen as facilitating access to some given information context. By handling each of the role contexts as independent security levels of information, we simulate mandatory access by imposing the requirements of mandatory accesscontrol. Among the key considerations, we propose a means of taming Trojan horses by imposing acyclic information flow among contexts in role-based protection systems. The acyclic information flows and suitable access rules incorporate secrecy which is an essential component of mandatory accesscontrol.

Background Clinical information systems frequently use intranet and Internet technologies. However these technologies have emphasized sharing and not security, despite the sensitive and private nature of much health information. Digital certificates (electronic documents which recognize an entity or its attributes) can be used to controlaccess in clinical intranet applications. Objectives To outline the need for accesscontrol in distributed clinical database systems, to describe the use of digital certificates and security policies, and to propose the architecture for a system using digital certificates, cryptography and security policy to controlaccess to clinical intranet applications. Methods We have previously developed a security policy, DIMEDAC (Distributed Medical Database AccessControl), which is compatible with emerging public key and privilege management infrastructure. In our implementation approach we propose the use of digital certificates, to be used in conjunction with DIMEDAC. Results Our proposed accesscontrol system consists of two phases: the ways users gain their security credentials; and how these credentials are used to access medical data. Three types of digital certificates are used: identity certificates for authentication; attribute certificates for authorization; and access-rule certificates for propagation of accesscontrol policy. Once a user is identified and authenticated, subsequent access decisions are based on a combination of identity and attribute certificates, with access-rule certificates providing the policy framework. Conclusions Accesscontrol in clinical intranet applications can be successfully and securely managed through the use of digital certificates and the DIMEDAC security policy. PMID:11720951

The complexity of the ATLAS experiment motivated the deployment of an integrated AccessControl System in order to guarantee safe and optimal access for a large number of users to the various software and hardware resources. Such an integrated system was foreseen since the design of the infrastructure and is now central to the operations model. In order to cope with the ever growing needs of restricting access to all resources used within the experiment, the Roles BasedAccessControl (RBAC) previously developed has been extended and improved. The paper starts with a short presentation of the RBAC design, implementation and the changes made to the system to allow the management and usage of roles to controlaccess to the vast and diverse set of resources. The RBAC implementation uses a directory service based on Lightweight Directory Access Protocol to store the users (~3000), roles (~320), groups (~80) and access policies. The information is kept in sync with various other databases and directory services: human resources, central CERN IT, CERN Active Directory and the AccessControl Database used by DCS. The paper concludes with a detailed description of the integration across all areas of the system.

Cybersecurity has become a great concern as threats of service interruption, unauthorized access, stealing and altering of information, and spreading of viruses have become more prevalent and serious. Application layer accesscontrol of applications is a critical component in the overall security solution that also includes encryption, firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus, and intrusion detection. An accesscontrol solution, based on an open-source access manager augmented with custom software components, was developed to provide protection to both Web-based and Javabased client and server applications. The DISA Security Service (DISA-SS) provides common accesscontrol capabilities for AMMOS software applications through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and network- accessible security services for authentication, single sign-on, authorization checking, and authorization policy management. The OpenAM access management technology designed for Web applications can be extended to meet the needs of Java thick clients and stand alone servers that are commonly used in the JPL AMMOS environment. The DISA-SS reusable components have greatly reduced the effort for each AMMOS subsystem to develop its own accesscontrol strategy. The novelty of this work is that it leverages an open-source access management product that was designed for Webbased applications to provide accesscontrol for Java thick clients and Java standalone servers. Thick clients and standalone servers are still commonly used in businesses and government, especially for applications that require rich graphical user interfaces and high-performance visualization that cannot be met by thin clients running on Web browsers

Cyber security has gained national and international attention as a result of near continuous headlines from financial institutions, retail stores, government offices and universities reporting compromised systems and stolen data. Concerns continue to rise as threats of service interruption, and spreading of viruses become ever more prevalent and serious. Controllingaccess to application layer resources is a critical component in a layered security solution that includes encryption, firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus, and intrusion detection. In this paper we discuss the development of an application-level accesscontrol solution, based on an open-source access manager augmented with custom software components, to provide protection to both Web-based and Java-based client and server applications.

Cyber security has gained national and international attention as a result of near continuous headlines from financial institutions, retail stores, government offices and universities reporting compromised systems and stolen data. Concerns continue to rise as threats of service interruption, and spreading of viruses become ever more prevalent and serious. Controllingaccess to application layer resources is a critical component in a layered security solution that includes encryption, firewalls, virtual private networks, antivirus, and intrusion detection. In this paper we discuss the development of an application-level accesscontrol solution, based on an open-source access manager augmented with custom software components, to provide protection to both Web-based and Java-based client and server applications.

Discusses the mobile software agent paradigm that provides a foundation for the development of high performance distributed applications and presents a simple, distributed accesscontrol architecture based on the concept of distributed, active authorization entities (lock cells), any combination of which can be referenced by an agent to provide…

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that used to identify objects and users has been applied to many applications such retail and supply chain recently. How to prevent tag content from unauthorized readout is a core problem of RFID privacy issues. Hash-lock accesscontrol protocol can make tag to release its content only to reader who knows the secret key shared between them. However, in order to get this shared secret key required by this protocol, reader needs to communicate with a back end database. In this paper, we propose to use identity-based secret key exchange approach to generate the secret key required for hash-lock accesscontrol protocol. With this approach, not only back end database connection is not needed anymore, but also tag cloning problem can be eliminated at the same time.

Healthcare is an increasingly collaborative enterprise involving a broad range of healthcare services provided by many individuals and organizations. Grid technology has been widely recognized as a means for integrating disparate computing resources in the healthcare field. Moreover, Grid portal applications can be developed on a wireless and mobile infrastructure to execute healthcare processes which, in turn, can provide remote access to Grid database services. Such an environment provides ubiquitous and pervasive access to integrated healthcare services at the point of care, thus improving healthcare quality. In such environments, the ability to provide an effective accesscontrol mechanism that meets the requirement of the least privilege principle is essential. Adherence to the least privilege principle requires continuous adjustments of user permissions in order to adapt to the current situation. This paper presents a context-aware accesscontrol mechanism for HDGPortal, a Grid portal application which provides access to workflow-based healthcare processes using wireless Personal Digital Assistants. The proposed mechanism builds upon and enhances security mechanisms provided by the Grid Security Infrastructure. It provides tight, just-in-time permissions so that authorized users get access to specific objects according to the current context. These permissions are subject to continuous adjustments triggered by the changing context. Thus, the risk of compromising information integrity during task executions is reduced.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has enabled open-architecture integration of applications within an enterprise. For net-centric Command and Control (C2), this elucidates information sharing between applications and users, a critical requirement for mission success. The Information Technology (IT) accesscontrol schemes, which arbitrate who gets access to what information, do not yet have the contextual knowledge to dynamically allow this information sharing to happen dynamically. The accesscontrol might prevent legitimate users from accessing information relevant to the current mission context, since this context may be very different from the context for which the access privileges were configured. We evaluate a pair of data relevance measures - proximity and risk - and use these as the basis of dynamic accesscontrol. Proximity is a measure of the strength of connection between the user and the resource. However, proximity is not sufficient, since some data might have a negative impact, if leaked, which far outweighs importance to the subject's mission. For this, we use a risk measure to quantify the downside of data compromise. Given these contextual measures of proximity and risk, we investigate extending Attribute-BasedAccessControl (ABAC), which is used by the Department of Defense, and Role-BasedAccessControl (RBAC), which is widely used in the civilian market, so that these standards-basedaccesscontrol models are given contextual knowledge to enable dynamic information sharing. Furthermore, we consider the use of such a contextual accesscontrol scheme in a SOA-based environment, in particular for net-centric C2.

Since the accesscontrol environment has changed and the threat of insider information leakage has come to the fore, studies on risk-basedaccesscontrol models that decide access permissions dynamically have been conducted vigorously. Medical information systems should protect sensitive data such as medical information from insider threat and enable dynamic accesscontrol depending on the context such as life-threatening emergencies. In this paper, we suggest an approach and framework for context sensitive risk-basedaccesscontrol suitable for medical information systems. This approach categorizes context information, estimating and applying risk through context- and treatment-based permission profiling and specifications by expanding the eXtensible AccessControl Markup Language (XACML) to apply risk. The proposed framework supports quick responses to medical situations and prevents unnecessary insider data access through dynamic access authorization decisions in accordance with the severity of the context and treatment.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is the heart element of any e-health system, which aims at improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare through the use of information and communication technologies. The sensitivity of the data contained in the health record poses a great challenge to security. In this paper we propose a security architecture for EHR systems that are conform with IHE profiles. In this architecture we are tackling the problems of accesscontrol and privacy. Furthermore, a prototypical implementation of the proposed model is presented.

The fast development of high-speed rails makes people's life more and more convenient. However, provisioning of quality of service of multimedia applications for users on the high-speed train is a critical task for wireless communications. Therefore, new solutions are desirable to be found to address this kind of problem. Current researches mainly focus on providing seamless broadband wireless access for high-speed mobile terminals. In this paper, an algorithm to calculate the optimal resource reservation fraction of handovers is proposed. A joint accesscontrol scheme for high-speed railway communication handover scenario is proposed. Metrics of access ratio and resource utilization ratio are considered jointly in the analysis and the performance evaluation. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm and the scheme improve quality of service compared with other conventional schemes.

The design of proper models for authorization and accesscontrol for electronic patient record (EPR) is essential to a wide scale use of EPR in large health organizations. In this paper, we propose a contextual role-basedaccesscontrol authorization model aiming to increase the patient privacy and the confidentiality of patient data, whereas being flexible enough to consider specific cases. This model regulates user's access to EPR based on organizational roles. It supports a role-tree hierarchy with authorization inheritance; positive and negative authorizations; static and dynamic separation of duties based on weak and strong role conflicts. Contextual authorizations use environmental information available at access time, like user/patient relationship, in order to decide whether a user is allowed to access an EPR resource. This enables the specification of a more flexible and precise authorization policy, where permission is granted or denied according to the right and the need of the user to carry out a particular job function.

This paper presents an action-based fine-grained accesscontrol mechanism for structured documents. Firstly, we define a describing model for structured documents and analyze the application scenarios. The describing model could support the permission management on chapters, pages, sections, words, and pictures of structured documents. Secondly, based on the action-basedaccesscontrol (ABAC) model, we propose a fine-grained control protocol for structured documents by introducing temporal state and environmental state. The protocol covering different stages from document creation, to permission specification and usage control are given by using the Z-notation. Finally, we give the implementation of our mechanism and make the comparisons between the existing methods and our mechanism. The result shows that our mechanism could provide the better solution of fine-grained accesscontrol for structured documents in complicated networks. Moreover, it is more flexible and practical. PMID:25136651

"Reflective Database AccessControl" (RDBAC) is a model in which a database privilege is expressed as a database query itself, rather than as a static privilege contained in an accesscontrol list. RDBAC aids the management of database accesscontrols by improving the expressiveness of policies. However, such policies introduce new interactions…

"Reflective Database AccessControl" (RDBAC) is a model in which a database privilege is expressed as a database query itself, rather than as a static privilege contained in an accesscontrol list. RDBAC aids the management of database accesscontrols by improving the expressiveness of policies. However, such policies introduce new interactions…

There has been an explosive increase in the population of the OSN (online social network) in recent years. The OSN provides users with many opportunities to communicate among friends and family. Further, it facilitates developing new relationships with previously unknown people having similar beliefs or interests. However, the OSN can expose users to adverse effects such as privacy breaches, the disclosing of uncontrolled material, and the disseminating of false information. Traditional accesscontrol models such as MAC, DAC, and RBAC are applied to the OSN to address these problems. However, these models are not suitable for the dynamic OSN environment because user behavior in the OSN is unpredictable and static accesscontrol imposes a burden on the users to change the accesscontrol rules individually. We propose a dynamic trust-basedaccesscontrol for the OSN to address the problems of the traditional static accesscontrol. Moreover, we provide novel criteria to evaluate trust factors such as sociological approach and evaluate a method to calculate the dynamic trust values. The proposed method can monitor negative behavior and modify access permission levels dynamically to prevent the indiscriminate disclosure of information.

There has been an explosive increase in the population of the OSN (online social network) in recent years. The OSN provides users with many opportunities to communicate among friends and family. Further, it facilitates developing new relationships with previously unknown people having similar beliefs or interests. However, the OSN can expose users to adverse effects such as privacy breaches, the disclosing of uncontrolled material, and the disseminating of false information. Traditional accesscontrol models such as MAC, DAC, and RBAC are applied to the OSN to address these problems. However, these models are not suitable for the dynamic OSN environment because user behavior in the OSN is unpredictable and static accesscontrol imposes a burden on the users to change the accesscontrol rules individually. We propose a dynamic trust-basedaccesscontrol for the OSN to address the problems of the traditional static accesscontrol. Moreover, we provide novel criteria to evaluate trust factors such as sociological approach and evaluate a method to calculate the dynamic trust values. The proposed method can monitor negative behavior and modify access permission levels dynamically to prevent the indiscriminate disclosure of information. PMID:25374943

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of a control packet signaling technique using electronic code division multiple access for a wavelength division multiplexing packet-based network, whereby each wavelength channel is assigned a unique electronic code based label on a radio frequency subcarrier. Such a technique allows each wavelength channel to be electronically identified without requiring the use of a WDM demultiplexer. We experimentally demonstrate this technique with two wavelength channels each with 1.25 Gb/s baseband payload data and 10 Mb/s header coded onto an electronic code at 160 Mb/s. A performance study of the electronic code division multiple accessbasedcontrol signaling scheme in a wavelength division multiplexed packet-basedaccess network is also performed in terms of the required power budget to monitor the electronic code division multiple accesscontrol signals in the presence of several sources of noise for error-free transmission of both payload data and electronic code division multiple accessbasedcontrol signals. It is shown that the modulation depth of each signal impacts the amount of required optical tap power. As the modulation depth of the electronic code division multiple accessbasedcontrol signal is increased, the required optical tap power is reduced. However, this increases the bit-error-rate for the payload data. Therefore, there lies a maximum and a minimum of the required tap optical power for the successful recovery of both signals. The lower bound of this range is usually determined by the successful recovery of electronic code division multiple accessbasedcontrol signal while the upper bound is determined by the successful recovery of payload data. The required optical tap power is analyzed for different transmission bit rates of the payload data for various receiver architecture scenarios without an optical amplifier at the receiver. The scalability analyses were repeated with an optical

Few things are more important for school safety and security than controllingaccess to buildings and grounds. It is relatively easy to incorporate effective accesscontrol measures in new school designs but more difficult in existing schools, where most building and site features cannot be readily altered or reconfigured. The National…

Community computing is an agent-based development paradigm for ubiquitous computing systems. In a community computing system, ubiquitous services are provided by cooperation among agents. While agents cooperate, they interact with each other continuously to access data of other agents and/or to execute other agent’s actions. However, in cases of security-critical ubiquitous services such as medical or military services, an accesscontrol mechanism is necessary to prevent unauthorized access to critical data or action. In this paper, we propose a family of Role interaction BasedAccessControl (RiBAC) models for Community Computing, by extending the existing RBAC model to consider role interactions. As a basic model, we propose the core RiBAC model. For the convenience of management and to provide more fine-grained accesscontrol, we propose Hierarchical RiBAC (H-RiBAC), Constrained RiBAC (C-RiBAC), and Constrained Hierarchical RiBAC (CH-RiBAC) models. Finally, we extend the existing community computing framework to accommodate the specification and enforcement of RiBAC policies.

ACCESS (Actively-Corrected Coronograph for Exoplanet System Studies) was one of four medium-class exoplanet concepts selected for the NASA Astrophysics Strategic Mission Concept Study (ASMCS) program in 2008/2009. The ACCESS study evaluated four major coronograph concepts under a common space observatory. This paper describes the high precision pointing control system (PCS) baselined for this observatory.

ACCESS (Actively-Corrected Coronograph for Exoplanet System Studies) was one of four medium-class exoplanet concepts selected for the NASA Astrophysics Strategic Mission Concept Study (ASMCS) program in 2008/2009. The ACCESS study evaluated four major coronograph concepts under a common space observatory. This paper describes the high precision pointing control system (PCS) baselined for this observatory.

This letter proposes a dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm for access networks based PON (Passive Optical Network). It considers the mixture of transport layer protocols when responding to traffic congestion at the SNI (Service Node Interface). Simulations on a mixture of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) traffic flows show that the algorithm increases the throughput of TCP, improves the fairness between the two protocols, and solves the congestion problem at the SNI.

The Security Alarm System is a data acquisition and control system which collects data from intrusion sensors and displays the information in a real-time environment for operators. The AccessControl System monitors and controls the movement of personnel with the use of card readers and biometrics hand readers.

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are very dynamic networks with devices continuously entering and leaving the group. The highly dynamic nature of MANETs renders the manual creation and update of policies associated with the initial incorporation of devices to the MANET (admission control) as well as with anomaly detection during communications among members (accesscontrol) a very difficult task. In this paper, we present BARTER, a mechanism that automatically creates and updates admission and accesscontrol policies for MANETs based on behavior profiles. BARTER is an adaptation for fully distributed environments of our previously introduced BB-NAC mechanism for NAC technologies. Rather than relying on a centralized NAC enforcer, MANET members initially exchange their behavior profiles and compute individual local definitions of normal network behavior. During admission or accesscontrol, each member issues an individual decision based on its definition of normalcy. Individual decisions are then aggregated via a threshold cryptographic infrastructure that requires an agreement among a fixed amount of MANET members to change the status of the network. We present experimental results using content and volumetric behavior profiles computed from the ENRON dataset. In particular, we show that the mechanism achieves true rejection rates of 95% with false rejection rates of 9%.

Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and “native” mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources—file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies “bridges” that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to fracking attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources—the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.—to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign

Hybrid mobile applications (apps) combine the features of Web applications and "native" mobile apps. Like Web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. Like native apps, they have direct access to local device resources-file system, location, camera, contacts, etc. Hybrid apps are typically developed using hybrid application frameworks such as PhoneGap. The purpose of the framework is twofold. First, it provides an embedded Web browser (for example, WebView on Android) that executes the app's Web code. Second, it supplies "bridges" that allow Web code to escape the browser and access local resources on the device. We analyze the software stack created by hybrid frameworks and demonstrate that it does not properly compose the access-control policies governing Web code and local code, respectively. Web code is governed by the same origin policy, whereas local code is governed by the access-control policy of the operating system (for example, user-granted permissions in Android). The bridges added by the framework to the browser have the same local access rights as the entire application, but are not correctly protected by the same origin policy. This opens the door to fracking attacks, which allow foreign-origin Web content included into a hybrid app (e.g., ads confined in iframes) to drill through the layers and directly access device resources. Fracking vulnerabilities are generic: they affect all hybrid frameworks, all embedded Web browsers, all bridge mechanisms, and all platforms on which these frameworks are deployed. We study the prevalence of fracking vulnerabilities in free Android apps based on the PhoneGap framework. Each vulnerability exposes sensitive local resources-the ability to read and write contacts list, local files, etc.-to dozens of potentially malicious Web domains. We also analyze the defenses deployed by hybrid frameworks to prevent resource access by foreign-origin Web content

Network data access services such as OPeNDAP enable widespread access to data across user communities. However, without ready means to restrict access to data for such services, data providers and data owners are constrained from making their data more widely available. Even with such capability, the range of different security technologies available can make interoperability between services and user client tools a challenge. OPeNDAP is a key data access service in the infrastructure under development to support the CMIP5 (Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5). The work is being carried out as part of an international collaboration including the US Earth System Grid and Curator projects and the EU funded IS-ENES and Metafor projects. This infrastructure will bring together Petabytes of climate model data and associated metadata from over twenty modelling centres around the world in a federation with a core archive mirrored at three data centres. A security system is needed to meet the requirements of organisations responsible for model data including the ability to restrict data access to registered users, keep them up to date with changes to data and services, audit access and protect finite computing resources. Individual organisations have existing tools and services such as OPeNDAP with which users in the climate research community are already familiar. The security system should overlay accesscontrol in a way which maintains the usability and ease of access to these services. The BADC (British Atmospheric Data Centre) has been working in collaboration with the Earth System Grid development team and partner organisations to develop the security architecture. OpenID and MyProxy were selected at an early stage in the ESG project to provide single sign-on capability across the federation of participating organisations. Building on the existing OPeNDAP specification an architecture based on pluggable server side components has been developed at the BADC

Much research has shown that a carefully designed auto rate medium accesscontrol can utilize the underlying physical multi-rate capability to exploit the time-variation of the channel. In this paper, we develop a simple analytical model to elucidate the rule that maximizes the throughput of RTS/CTS based multi-rate wireless local area networks. Based on the discovered rule, we propose two distributed fair auto rate medium accesscontrol schemes called FARM and FARM+ from the view-point of throughput fairness and time-share fairness, respectively. With the proposed schemes, after receiving a RTS frame, the receiver selectively returns the CTS frame to inform the transmitter the maximum feasible rate probed by the signal-to-noise ratio of the received RTS frame. The key feature of the proposed schemes is that they are capable of maintaining throughput/time-share fairness in asymmetric situation where the distribution of SNR varies with stations. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed schemes outperform the existing throughput/time-share fair auto rate schemes in time-varying channel conditions.

We propose a probabilistic face recognition algorithm for AccessControl System(ACS)s. Comparing with existing ACSs using low cost IC-cards, face recognition has advantages in usability and security that it doesn't require people to hold cards over scanners and doesn't accept imposters with authorized cards. Therefore face recognition attracts more interests in security markets than IC-cards. But in security markets where low cost ACSs exist, price competition is important, and there is a limitation on the quality of available cameras and image control. Therefore ACSs using face recognition are required to handle much lower quality images, such as defocused and poor gain-controlled images than high security systems, such as immigration control. To tackle with such image quality problems we developed a face recognition algorithm based on a probabilistic model which combines a variety of image-difference features trained by Real AdaBoost with their prior probability distributions. It enables to evaluate and utilize only reliable features among trained ones during each authentication, and achieve high recognition performance rates. The field evaluation using a pseudo AccessControl System installed in our office shows that the proposed system achieves a constant high recognition performance rate independent on face image qualities, that is about four times lower EER (Equal Error Rate) under a variety of image conditions than one without any prior probability distributions. On the other hand using image difference features without any prior probabilities are sensitive to image qualities. We also evaluated PCA, and it has worse, but constant performance rates because of its general optimization on overall data. Comparing with PCA, Real AdaBoost without any prior distribution performs twice better under good image conditions, but degrades to a performance as good as PCA under poor image conditions.

Internet of Things (IoT) networks are the pillar of recent novel scenarios, such as smart cities or e-healthcare applications. Among other challenges, these networks cover the deployment and interaction of small devices with constrained capabilities and Internet protocol (IP)-based networking connectivity. These constrained devices usually require connection to the Internet to exchange information (e.g., management or sensing data) or access network services. However, only authenticated and authorized devices can, in general, establish this connection. The so-called authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) services are in charge of performing these tasks on the Internet. Thus, it is necessary to deploy protocols that allow constrained devices to verify their credentials against AAA infrastructures. The Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access (PANA) has been standardized by the Internet engineering task force (IETF) to carry the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP), which provides flexible authentication upon the presence of AAA. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first deep study of the feasibility of EAP/PANA for network accesscontrol in constrained devices. We provide light-weight versions and implementations of these protocols to fit them into constrained devices. These versions have been designed to reduce the impact in standard specifications. The goal of this work is two-fold: (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of EAP/PANA in IoT devices; (2) to provide the scientific community with the first light-weight interoperable implementation of EAP/PANA for constrained devices in the Contiki operating system (Contiki OS), called PANATIKI. The paper also shows a testbed, simulations and experimental results obtained from real and simulated constrained devices. PMID:24189332

Internet of Things (IoT) networks are the pillar of recent novel scenarios, such as smart cities or e-healthcare applications. Among other challenges, these networks cover the deployment and interaction of small devices with constrained capabilities and Internet protocol (IP)-based networking connectivity. These constrained devices usually require connection to the Internet to exchange information (e.g., management or sensing data) or access network services. However, only authenticated and authorized devices can, in general, establish this connection. The so-called authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) services are in charge of performing these tasks on the Internet. Thus, it is necessary to deploy protocols that allow constrained devices to verify their credentials against AAA infrastructures. The Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access (PANA) has been standardized by the Internet engineering task force (IETF) to carry the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP), which provides flexible authentication upon the presence of AAA. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first deep study of the feasibility of EAP/PANA for network accesscontrol in constrained devices. We provide light-weight versions and implementations of these protocols to fit them into constrained devices. These versions have been designed to reduce the impact in standard specifications. The goal of this work is two-fold: (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of EAP/PANA in IoT devices; (2) to provide the scientific community with the first light-weight interoperable implementation of EAP/PANA for constrained devices in the Contiki operating system (Contiki OS), called PANATIKI. The paper also shows a testbed, simulations and experimental results obtained from real and simulated constrained devices.

Steganographic techniques allow secret data to be embedded inside another host data such as an image or a text file without significant changes to the quality of the host data. In this research, we demonstrate how steganography can be used as the main mechanism to build an accesscontrol model that gives data owners complete control to their sensitive cardiac health information hidden in their own Electrocardiograms. Our accesscontrol model is able to protect the privacy of users, the confidentiality of medical data, reduce storage space and make it more efficient to upload and download large amount of data.

This paper considers the distributed access and control problem of massive wireless sensor networks’ data access center for the Internet of Things, which is an extension of wireless sensor networks and an element of its topology structure. In the context of the arrival of massive service access requests at a virtual data center, this paper designs a massive sensing data access and control mechanism to improve the access efficiency of service requests and makes full use of the available resources at the data access center for the Internet of things. Firstly, this paper proposes a synergistically distributed buffer access model, which separates the information of resource and location. Secondly, the paper divides the service access requests into multiple virtual groups based on their characteristics and locations using an optimized self-organizing feature map neural network. Furthermore, this paper designs an optimal scheduling algorithm of group migration based on the combination scheme between the artificial bee colony algorithm and chaos searching theory. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that this mechanism outperforms the existing schemes in terms of enhancing the accessibility of service requests effectively, reducing network delay, and has higher load balancing capacity and higher resource utility rate. PMID:27827878

This paper considers the distributed access and control problem of massive wireless sensor networks' data access center for the Internet of Things, which is an extension of wireless sensor networks and an element of its topology structure. In the context of the arrival of massive service access requests at a virtual data center, this paper designs a massive sensing data access and control mechanism to improve the access efficiency of service requests and makes full use of the available resources at the data access center for the Internet of things. Firstly, this paper proposes a synergistically distributed buffer access model, which separates the information of resource and location. Secondly, the paper divides the service access requests into multiple virtual groups based on their characteristics and locations using an optimized self-organizing feature map neural network. Furthermore, this paper designs an optimal scheduling algorithm of group migration based on the combination scheme between the artificial bee colony algorithm and chaos searching theory. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that this mechanism outperforms the existing schemes in terms of enhancing the accessibility of service requests effectively, reducing network delay, and has higher load balancing capacity and higher resource utility rate.

The mobile accesscontrol vestibule (MACV) is an adaptation of techniques developed for mobile military command centers. The overall configuration of modules acts as an entry control/screening facility or transportable command center. The system would provide the following capabilities: (1) A key element for force protection, rapid deployment units sent to areas having no prepositioned equipment or where there has been a degradation of that equipment as a result of natural disasters or civil unrest. (2) A rapidly deployable security control center to upgrade the security at nonmilitary sites (e.g., diplomatic or humanitarian organizations). (3) Personnel screening, package screening, badge/identification card production for authorized personnel, centralized monitoring of deployed perimeter sensors, and centralized communications for law enforcement personnel. (4) Self-contained screening and threat detection systems, including explosives detection using the system developed by Sandia National Laboratories for the FAA. When coupled with transportable electric generators, the system is self-sufficient. The communication system for the MACV would be a combination of physically wired and wireless communication units that supports by ad hoc networking.

Multimedia social networks (MMSNs) have provided a convenient way to share multimedia contents such as images, videos, blogs, etc. Contents shared by a person can be easily accessed by anybody else over the Internet. However, due to various privacy, security, and legal concerns people often want to selectively share the contents only with their friends, family, colleagues, etc. Accesscontrol mechanisms play an important role in this situation. With accesscontrol mechanisms one can decide the persons who can access a shared content and who cannot. But continuously growing content uploads and accesses, fine grained accesscontrol requirements (e.g. different accesscontrol parameters for different parts in a picture), and specific accesscontrol requirements for multimedia contents can make the time complexity of accesscontrol to be very large. So, it is important to study an efficient accesscontrol mechanism suitable for MMSNs. In this chapter we present an efficient bit-vector transform basedaccesscontrol mechanism for MMSNs. The proposed approach is also compatible with other requirements of MMSNs, such as access rights modification, content deletion, etc. Mathematical analysis and experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed approach.

Behavior-BasedAccessControl (BBAC). The work described in this paper focuses on the statistical machine learning techniques used in BBAC to make...and describe current plans for transitioning BBAC capabilities into the Department of Defense together with lessons learned for the machine learning community.

A collaboration is a collection of services that work together to achieve a common goal. Although collaborations help when tackling difficult problems, they lead to security issues. First, a collaboration is often performed by services that are drawn from different security domains. Second, a service interacts with multiple peer services during the collaboration. These interactions are not isolated from one another--e.g., data may flow through a sequence of different services. As a result, a service is exposed to multiple peer services in varying degrees, leading to different security threats. We identify the types of interactions that can be present in collaborations, and discuss the security threats due to each type. We propose a model for representing the collaboration context so that a service can be made aware of the existing interactions. We provide an accesscontrol model for a service participating in a collaboration. We couple our accesscontrol model with a policy model, so that the access requirements from collaborations can be expressed and evaluated.

and Hongjie Xin for making this a rewarding team experience. Thanks to Mr. Michael Warres from Sun Microsystems for being prompt and meticulous in our...Windows NT), and security policies based on the Chinese wall model for separation of duties [8]. RBAC simplifies the administration of access...connection check is sort of a first wall of defense against illegitimate users, while the JavaSpace action is more specific to a particular object, known as

Techniques and mechanism to selectively provide resource access to a functional domain of a platform. In an embodiment, the platform includes both a report domain to monitor the functional domain and a policy domain to identify, based on such monitoring, a transition of the functional domain from a first integrity level to a second integrity level. In response to a change in integrity level, the policy domain may configure the enforcement domain to enforce against the functional domain one or more resource accessibility rules corresponding to the second integrity level. In another embodiment, the policy domain automatically initiates operations in aid of transitioning the platform from the second integrity level to a higher integrity level.

Presents a brief summary of the functions of the Bibliographic Access & Control System (BACS) implemented at the Washington University School of Medicine Library, and outlines the design, development, and uses of the system. Bibliographic control of books and serials and user access to the system are also discussed. (Author/JL)

ACCESS, Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars, is a series of rocket-borne sub-orbital missions and ground-based experiments that will enable improvements in the precision of the astrophysical flux scale through the transfer of absolute laboratory detector standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to a network of stellar standards with a calibration accuracy of 1% and a spectral resolving power of 500 across the 0.35 to 1.7 micron bandpass (companion poster, Kaiser et al.). The flight detector and detector spare have been selected and integrated with their electronics and flight mount. The controller electronics have been flight qualified. Vibration testing to launch loads and thermal vacuum testing of the detector, mount, and housing have been successfully performed. Further improvements to the flight controller housing have been made. A cryogenic ground test system has been built. Dark current and read noise tests have been performed, yielding results consistent with the initial characterization tests of the detector performed by Goddard Space Flight Center’s Detector Characterization Lab (DCL). Detector control software has been developed and implemented for ground testing. Performance and integration of the detector and controller with the flight software will be presented. NASA APRA sounding rocket grant NNX08AI65G supports this work.

Failing to prevent leaks of confidential and proprietary information to unauthorized users from software applications is a major challenge that companies face. Accesscontrol policies defined in software applications with accesscontrol mechanisms are unable to prevent information leaks from software applications to unauthorized users. Role-based…

several advanced networking courses. Through his knowledge and teaching style, I gained critical knowledge and skills that will certainly help me in my...information contained in a datagram that is pertinent to accesscontrol. The following pseudo- grammar specifies the values used in this thesis: A ::= HTTP_RQ

multiple WSN policies. The construction, hybridization, and composition of well–known models is demonstrated to preserve security, sustaining...confidentiality in Bell–LaPadula’s model , integrity in Biba’s strict integrity model , and conflict of interest avoidance in the Chinese Wall. Using WASL, a multi...as defined by the security model . It is also be more flexible in that a policy file update is all that is required to modify the accesses permitted

The Radiation Security System (RSS) at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) provides personnel protection from prompt radiation due to accelerated beam. The Personnel AccessControl System (PACS) is a component of the RSS that is designed to prevent personnel access to areas where prompt radiation is a hazard. PACS was designed to replace several older personnel safety systems (PSS) with a single modem unified design. Lessons learned from the operation over the last 20 years were incorporated into a redundant sensor, single-point failure safe, fault tolerant, and tamper-resistant system that prevents access to the beam areas by controlling the access keys and beam stoppers. PACS uses a layered philosophy to the physical and electronic design. The most critical assemblies are battery backed up, relay logic circuits; less critical devices use Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) for timing functions and communications. Outside reviewers have reviewed the operational safety of the design. The design philosophy, lessons learned, hardware design, software design, operation, and limitations of the device are described.

The information technology revolution has transformed all aspects of our society including critical infrastructures and led a significant shift from their old and disparate business models based on proprietary and legacy environments to more open and consolidated ones. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have been widely used not only for industrial processes but also for some experimental facilities. Due to the nature of open environments, managing SCADA systems should meet various security requirements since system administrators need to deal with a large number of entities and functions involved in critical infrastructures. In this paper, we identify necessary accesscontrol requirements in SCADA systems and articulate accesscontrol policies for the simulated SCADA systems. We also attempt to analyze and realize those requirements and policies in the context of role-basedaccesscontrol that is suitable for simplifying administrative tasks in large scale enterprises.

The integration of medical data coming from multiple sources is important in clinical research. Amongst others, it enables the discovery of appropriate subjects in patient-oriented research and the identification of innovative results in epidemiological studies. At the same time, the integration of medical data faces significant ethical and legal challenges that impose access constraints. Some of these issues can be addressed by making available aggregated instead of raw record-level data. In many cases however, there is still a need for controllingaccess even to the resulting aggregated data, e.g., due to data provider's policies. In this paper we present the Linked Medical Data AccessControl (LiMDAC) framework that capitalizes on Linked Data technologies to enable controllingaccess to medical data across distributed sources with diverse access constraints. The LiMDAC framework consists of three Linked Data models, namely the LiMDAC metadata model, the LiMDAC user profile model, and the LiMDAC access policy model. It also includes an architecture that exploits these models. Based on the framework, a proof-of-concept platform is developed and its performance and functionality are evaluated by employing two usage scenarios.

Today's IT-infrastructure provides more and more possibilities to share electronic patient data across several healthcare organizations and hospital departments. A strong requirement is sufficient data protection and security measures complying with the medical confidentiality and the data protection laws of each state or country like the European directive on data protection or the U.S. HIPAA privacy rule. In essence, the accesscontrol mechanisms and authorization structures of information systems must be able to realize the Need-To-Access principle. This principle can be understood as a set of context-sensitive access rules, regarding the patient's path across the organizations. The accesscontrol mechanisms of today's health information systems do not sufficiently satisfy this requirement, because information about participation of persons or organizations is not available within each system in a distributed environment. This problem could be solved by appropriate security services. The CORBA healthcare domain standard contains such a service for obtaining authorization decisions and administrating access decision policies (RAD). At the university hospital of Mainz we have developed an accesscontrol system (MACS), which includes the main functionality of the RAD specification and the accesscontrol logic that is needed for such a service. The basic design principles of our approach are role-based authorization, user rights with static and dynamic authorization data, context rules and the separation of three cooperating servers that provide up-to-date knowledge about users, roles and responsibilities. This paper introduces the design principles and the system design and critically evaluates the concepts based on practical experience.

The subject of accesscontrol mechanisms in computer systems is concerned with effective means to protect the anonymity of private information on the one hand, and to regulate the access to shareable information on the other hand. Effective means for accesscontrol may be considered on three levels: memory, process and logical. This report is a…

Integration of satellite access networks with the Internet is seen as a strategic goal to achieve in order to provide ubiquitous broadband access to Internet services in Next Generation Networks (NGNs). One of the main interworking aspects which has been most studied is an efficient management of satellite resources, i.e. bandwidth and buffer space, in order to satisfy most demanding application requirements as to delay control and bandwidth assurance. In this context, resource management in DVB-S/DVB-RCS satellite technologies, emerging technologies for broadband satellite access and transport of IP applications, is a research issue largely investigated as a means to provide efficient bi-directional communications across satellites. This is in particular one of the principal goals of the SATIP6 project, sponsored within the 5th EU Research Programme Framework, i.e. IST. In this paper we present a possible approach to efficiently exploit bandwidth, the most critical resource in a broadband satellite access network, while pursuing satisfaction of delay and bandwidth requirements for applications with guaranteed QoS through a traffic control architecture to be implemented in ground terminals. Performance of this approach is assessed in terms of efficient exploitation of the uplink bandwidth and differentiation and minimization of queuing delays for most demanding applications over a time-varying capacity. Opnet simulations is used as analysis tool.

This slide presentation presents NASA's Common Badging and AccessControl System. NASA began a Smart Card implementation in January 2004. Following site surveys, it was determined that NASA's badging and accesscontrol systems required upgrades to common infrastructure in order to provide flexibly, usability, and return on investment prior to a smart card implantation. Common Badging and AccessControl System (CBACS) provides the common infrastructure from which FIPS-201 compliant processes, systems, and credentials can be developed and used.

ALICE Controls data produced by commercial SCADA system WINCCOA is stored in ORACLE database on the private experiment network. The SCADA system allows for basic access and processing of the historical data. More advanced analysis requires tools like ROOT and needs therefore a separate access method to the archives. The present scenario expects that detector experts create simple WINCCOA scripts, which retrieves and stores data in a form usable for further studies. This relatively simple procedure generates a lot of administrative overhead - users have to request the data, experts needed to run the script, the results have to be exported outside of the experiment network. The new mechanism profits from database replica, which is running on the CERN campus network. Access to this database is not restricted and there is no risk of generating a heavy load affecting the operation of the experiment. The developed tools presented in this paper allow for access to this data. The users can use web-based tools to generate the requests, consisting of the data identifiers and period of time of interest. The administrators maintain full control over the data - an authorization and authentication mechanism helps to assign privileges to selected users and restrict access to certain groups of data. Advanced caching mechanism allows the user to profit from the presence of already processed data sets. This feature significantly reduces the time required for debugging as the retrieval of raw data can last tens of minutes. A highly configurable client allows for information retrieval bypassing the interactive interface. This method is for example used by ALICE Offline to extract operational conditions after a run is completed. Last but not least, the software can be easily adopted to any underlying database structure and is therefore not limited to WINCCOA.

Managing access to shared digital information, such as photographs and documents. is difficult for end users who are accumulating an increasingly large and diverse collection of data that they want to share with others. Current policy-management solutions require a user to proactively seek out and open a separate policy-management interface when…

Managing access to shared digital information, such as photographs and documents. is difficult for end users who are accumulating an increasingly large and diverse collection of data that they want to share with others. Current policy-management solutions require a user to proactively seek out and open a separate policy-management interface when…

For establishing trustworthiness in advanced architectures for future-proof health information systems being open, flexible, scaleable, portable, and semantically interoperable, security and privacy services needed must be designed as an inherent part of the architecture. Such architecture has to meet the paradigms of distribution, component orientation, formal modelling, separation of logical and technological aspects, etc. In model-driven architectures components providing security and privacy services have to be specified using the same methodology of formal models with meta-languages as expression means, as deployed in computational, technical, or medical domains. The resulting approach must be based on the ISO Reference Model-Open Distributed Processing. Currently, standards developing organisation are defining emerging tasks and standards for semantic interoperability and trustworthy collaboration for advanced health information systems. Communication security issues have been specified and implemented, while application security challenges such as privilege management and accesscontrol are still under development. Therefore, a series of formal models have been developed by the authors covering, e.g. domains, service delegation, claims control, policies, roles, authorisations, and accesscontrol. The required models are introduced and interpreted in a generic way. The crucial concept of security policy and its relationship to the other concepts has been considered in detail. Based on formal models, security services can be integrated into advanced systems architectures enabling semantic interoperability in the context of trustworthiness of communication and co-operation.

The Internet is an optimal setting to provide massive access to tobacco treatments. To evaluate open-access Web-based smoking cessation programs in a real-world setting, adherence and retention data should be taken into account as much as abstinence rate. The objective was to analyze the usage and effectiveness of a fully automated, open-access, Web-based smoking cessation program by comparing interactive versus noninteractive versions. Participants were randomly assigned either to the interactive or noninteractive version of the program, both with identical content divided into 4 interdependent modules. At baseline, we collected demographic, psychological, and smoking characteristics of the smokers self-enrolled in the Web-based program of Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (National Distance Education University; UNED) in Madrid, Spain. The following questionnaires were administered: the anxiety and depression subscales from the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, the 4-item Perceived Stress Scale, and the Heaviness of Smoking Index. At 3 months, we analyzed dropout rates, module completion, user satisfaction, follow-up response rate, and self-assessed smoking abstinence. A total of 23,213 smokers were registered, 50.06% (11,620/23,213) women and 49.94% (11,593/23,213) men, with a mean age of 39.5 years (SD 10.3). Of these, 46.10% (10,701/23,213) were married and 34.43% (7992/23,213) were single, 46.03% (10,686/23,213) had university education, and 78.73% (18,275/23,213) were employed. Participants smoked an average of 19.4 cigarettes per day (SD 10.3). Of the 11,861 smokers randomly assigned to the interactive version, 2720 (22.93%) completed the first module, 1052 (8.87%) the second, 624 (5.26%) the third, and 355 (2.99%) the fourth. Completion data was not available for the noninteractive version (no way to record it automatically). The 3-month follow-up questionnaire was completed by 1085 of 23,213 enrolled smokers (4.67%). Among them, 406 (37.42%) self

Background The Internet is an optimal setting to provide massive access to tobacco treatments. To evaluate open-access Web-based smoking cessation programs in a real-world setting, adherence and retention data should be taken into account as much as abstinence rate. Objective The objective was to analyze the usage and effectiveness of a fully automated, open-access, Web-based smoking cessation program by comparing interactive versus noninteractive versions. Methods Participants were randomly assigned either to the interactive or noninteractive version of the program, both with identical content divided into 4 interdependent modules. At baseline, we collected demographic, psychological, and smoking characteristics of the smokers self-enrolled in the Web-based program of Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (National Distance Education University; UNED) in Madrid, Spain. The following questionnaires were administered: the anxiety and depression subscales from the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, the 4-item Perceived Stress Scale, and the Heaviness of Smoking Index. At 3 months, we analyzed dropout rates, module completion, user satisfaction, follow-up response rate, and self-assessed smoking abstinence. Results A total of 23,213 smokers were registered, 50.06% (11,620/23,213) women and 49.94% (11,593/23,213) men, with a mean age of 39.5 years (SD 10.3). Of these, 46.10% (10,701/23,213) were married and 34.43% (7992/23,213) were single, 46.03% (10,686/23,213) had university education, and 78.73% (18,275/23,213) were employed. Participants smoked an average of 19.4 cigarettes per day (SD 10.3). Of the 11,861 smokers randomly assigned to the interactive version, 2720 (22.93%) completed the first module, 1052 (8.87%) the second, 624 (5.26%) the third, and 355 (2.99%) the fourth. Completion data was not available for the noninteractive version (no way to record it automatically). The 3-month follow-up questionnaire was completed by 1085 of 23,213 enrolled smokers

Electronic Patient Health Record (EPHR) systems may facilitate a patient not only to share his/her health records securely with healthcare professional but also to control his/her health privacy, in a convenient and easy way even in case of emergency. In order to fulfill these requirements, it is greatly desirable to have the accesscontrol mechanism which can efficiently handle every circumstance without negotiating security. However, the existing accesscontrol mechanisms used in healthcare to regulate and restrict the disclosure of patient data are often bypassed in case of emergencies. In this article, we propose a way to securely share EPHR data under any situation including break-the-glass (BtG) without compromising its security. In this regard, we design a reference security model, which consists of a multi-level data flow hierarchy, and an efficient accesscontrol framework based on the conventional Role-BasedAccessControl (RBAC) and Mandatory AccessControl (MAC) policies.

The Internet provides an opportunity for students to access laboratories from outside the campus. This paper presents a Web-based remote access real-time laboratory using SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) control. The control of an induction motor is used as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of this remote laboratory,…

The Internet provides an opportunity for students to access laboratories from outside the campus. This paper presents a Web-based remote access real-time laboratory using SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) control. The control of an induction motor is used as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of this remote laboratory,…

The transition from hardcopy records to electronic records is in the forefront for healthcare today. For healthcare facilities, a major issue is determining who can access patients' medical information and how access to this information can be controlled. There are three components to accesscontrol: identification, authentication and authorization. Checking proof of identity is a means of authenticating someone--through a driver's license, passport or their fingerprints. Similar processes are needed in a computer environment, through the use of passwords, one-time passwords or smartcards, encryption and kerberos, and call-back procedures. New in the area of accesscontrol are biometric devices, which are hardware/software combinations that digitize a physical characteristic and compare the sample with previously stored samples. Fingerprints, voiceprints and facial features are examples. Their cost is currently prohibitive, but in time, they may become more common. Digital certificates and certification authorities are other means used to authenticate identify. When a system challenges a user's identity at log on, the user provides a certification that tells the system to go to the issuing certification authority and find proof the user's claim is valid. Low-level certifications offer little value for sensitive data, but high-level certification is now being introduced. It requires more specific, detailed information on the applicant. Authorization, the final component of accesscontrol, establishes what a specific user can and cannot access. To have effective accesscontrol, transaction logging and system monitoring are needed to ensure the various techniques are being used and performing properly.

A receiver accesscontrol scheme is proposed to protect the multicast distribution tree from DoS attack induced by unauthorized use of IGMP, by extending the security-related functionality of IGMP. Based on a specific network and business model adopted for commercial deployment of IP multicast applications, a key management scheme is also presented for bootstrapping the proposed accesscontrol as well as accounting and billing for CP (Content Provider), NSP (Network Service Provider), and group members.

An accesscontrol apparatus for an access gate. The access gate typically has a rotator that is configured to rotate around a rotator axis at a first variable speed in a forward direction. The accesscontrol apparatus may include a transmission that typically has an input element that is operatively connected to the rotator. The input element is generally configured to rotate at an input speed that is proportional to the first variable speed. The transmission typically also has an output element that has an output speed that is higher than the input speed. The input element and the output element may rotate around a common transmission axis. A retardation mechanism may be employed. The retardation mechanism is typically configured to rotate around a retardation mechanism axis. Generally the retardation mechanism is operatively connected to the output element of the transmission and is configured to retard motion of the access gate in the forward direction when the first variable speed is above a control-limit speed. In many embodiments the transmission axis and the retardation mechanism axis are substantially co-axial. Some embodiments include a freewheel/catch mechanism that has an input connection that is operatively connected to the rotator. The input connection may be configured to engage an output connection when the rotator is rotated at the first variable speed in a forward direction and configured for substantially unrestricted rotation when the rotator is rotated in a reverse direction opposite the forward direction. The input element of the transmission is typically operatively connected to the output connection of the freewheel/catch mechanism.

The goals of the project are: Achieve high business value through a common badging and accesscontrol system that integrates with smart cards. Provide physical (versus logical) deployment of smart cards initially. Provides a common consistent and reliable environment into which to release the smart card. Gives opportunity to develop agency-wide consistent processes, practices and policies. Enables enterprise data capture and management. Promotes data validation prior to SC issuance.

We study the problem of limiting privacy loss due to data shared in a social network, where the basic underlying assumptions are that users are interested in sharing data and cannot be assumed to constantly follow appropriate privacy policies. Note that if these two assumptions do not hold, social network privacy is theoretically very easy to achieve; for instance, via some form of accesscontrol and confidentiality transformation on the data.

A medical record contains a large amount of data about the patient such as height, weight and blood pressure. It also contains sensitive information such as fertility, abortion, psychiatric data, sexually transmitted diseases and diagnostic results. Access to this information must be carefully controlled. Information technology has greatly improved patient care. The recent extensive deployment of digital medical images made diagnostic images promptly available to healthcare decision makers, regardless of their geographic location. Medical images are digitally archived, transferred on telecommunication networks, and visualized on computer screens. However, with the widespread use of computing and communication technologies in healthcare, the issue of data security has become increasingly important. Most of the work until now has focused on the security of data communication to ensure its integrity, authentication, confidentiality and user accountability. The mechanisms that have been proposed to achieve the security of data communication are not specific to healthcare. Data integrity can be achieved with data signature. Data authentication can be achieved with certificate exchange. Data confidentiality can be achieved with encryption. User accountability can be achieved with audits. Although these mechanisms are essential to ensure data security during its transfer on the network, accesscontrol is needed in order to ensure data confidentiality and privacy within the information system application. In this paper, we present and discuss an accesscontrol mechanism that takes into account the notion of a care process. Radiology information is categorized and a model to enforce data privacy is proposed.

There is a demand to make first-line treatments, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for adolescent anxiety disorders, more widely available. Internet-based CBT is proposed to circumvent access and availability barriers and reduce health care system costs. Recent reviews suggest more evidence is needed to establish the treatment effects of Internet-based CBT in children and adolescents and to determine related economic impacts. This pilot trial aims to collect the necessary data to inform the planning of a full-scale RCT to test the effectiveness of the Internet-based CBT program Breathe (Being Real, Easing Anxiety: Tools Helping Electronically). We are conducting a 27-month, 2-arm parallel-group, pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). Outcomes will inform the planning of a full-scale RCT aimed to test the effectiveness of Internet-based CBT with a population of adolescents with moderate to mild anxiety problems. In the pilot RCT we will: (1) define a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) for the primary outcome measure (total anxiety score using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children); (2) determine a sample size for the full-scale RCT; (3) estimate recruitment and retention rates; (4) measure intervention acceptability to inform critical intervention changes; (5) determine the use of co-interventions; and (6) conduct a cost-consequence analysis to inform a cost-effectiveness analysis in the full-scale RCT. Adolescents aged 13-17 years seeking care for an anxiety complaint from a participating emergency department, mobile or school-based crisis team, or primary care clinic are being screened for interest and eligibility. Enrolled adolescents are being randomly allocated to either 8 weeks of Internet-based CBT with limited telephone and e-mail support, or a control group with access to a static webpage listing anxiety resources. Adolescents are randomly assigned using a computer generated allocation sequence. Data are being collected

The progress of information and communication technologies (ICT) has promoted the development of healthcare which has enabled the exchange of resources and services between organizations. Organizations want to integrate mobile devices into their hospital information systems (HIS) due to the convenience to employees who are then able to perform specific healthcare processes from any location. The collection and merage of healthcare data from discrete mobile devices are worth exploring possible ways for further use, especially in remote districts without public data network (PDN) to connect the HIS. In this study, we propose an optimal mobile service which automatically synchronizes the telecare file resources among discrete mobile devices. The proposed service enforces some technical methods. The role-basedaccesscontrol model defines the telecare file resources accessing mechanism; the symmetric data encryption method protects telecare file resources transmitted over a mobile peer-to-peer network. The multi-criteria decision analysis method, ELECTRE (Elimination Et Choice Translating Reality), evaluates multiple criteria of the candidates' mobile devices to determine a ranking order. This optimizes the synchronization of telecare file resources among discrete mobile devices. A prototype system is implemented to examine the proposed mobile service. The results of the experiment show that the proposed mobile service can automatically and effectively synchronize telecare file resources among discrete mobile devices. The contribution of this experiment is to provide an optimal mobile service that enhances the security of telecare file resource synchronization and strengthens an organization's mobility.

The association between dialysis vascular access dysfunction and the risk of developing major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in hemodialysis patients is unclear and has not yet been investigated. We analyzed data from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan to quantify this association. Adopting a case-control design nested within a cohort of patients who received hemodialysis from 2001 to 2010, we identified 9711 incident cases of MACE during the stage of stable maintenance dialysis and 19,422 randomly selected controls matched to cases on age, gender, and duration of dialysis. Events of vascular access dysfunction in the 6-month period before the date of MACE onset (ie, index date) for cases and before index dates for controls were evaluated retrospectively. The presence of vascular access dysfunction was associated with a 1.385-fold higher odds of developing MACE as estimated from the logistic regression analysis. This represents a significantly increased adjusted odds ratio (OR) at 1.268 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.186-1.355) after adjustment for comorbidities and calendar years of initiating dialysis. We also noted a significant exposure-response trend (P < 0.001) between the frequency of vascular access dysfunction and MACE, with the greatest risk (adjusted OR = 1.840, 95% CI = 1.549-2.186) noted in patients with ≥3 vascular access events. We concluded that dialysis vascular access dysfunction was significantly associated with an increased risk of MACE. Hence, vascular access failure can be an early sign for MACE in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis. Active monitoring and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors and related diseases, not merely managing vascular access dysfunction, would be required to reduce the risk of MACE.

As insider threats pose very significant security risks to IT systems, we ask what policy-based approaches to accesscontrol can do for the detection, mitigation or countering of insider threats and insider attacks. Answering this question is difficult: little public data about insider-threat cases is available; there is not much consensus about what the insider problem actually is; and previous research in accesscontrol has by-and-large not dealt with this issue. We explore existing notions of insiderness in order to identify the relevant research issues. We then formulate a set of requirements for next-generation access-control systems, whose realization might form part of an overall strategy to address the insider problem.

The development of mobile computing, cloud computing and distributed computing meets the growing individual service needs. Facing with complex application system, it's an urgent problem to ensure real-time, dynamic, and fine-grained data accesscontrol. By analyzing common data accesscontrol models, on the basis of mandatory accesscontrol model, the paper proposes a service-oriented accesscontrol model. By regarding system services as subject and data of databases as object, the model defines access levels and access identification of subject and object, and ensures system services securely to access databases.

Modern authorization systems span domains of administration, rely on many different authentication sources, and manage complex attributes as part of the authorization process. This . paper presents Cardea, a distributed system that facilitates dynamic accesscontrol, as a valuable piece of an inter-operable authorization framework. First, the authorization model employed in Cardea and its functionality goals are examined. Next, critical features of the system architecture and its handling of the authorization process are then examined. Then the S A M L and XACML standards, as incorporated into the system, are analyzed. Finally, the future directions of this project are outlined and connection points with general components of an authorization system are highlighted.

During chemical weapons challenge inspections, the CWC treaty allows ``alternate means`` of access to be proposed by the nation challenged. BNL`s Safeguards, Safety and Nonproliferation Division is funded by the Defense Nuclear Agency to develop a system to provide the challenge inspection team with a ``virtual presence`` within the facility while denying personal access. A general purpose configuration of a mobile station manned by site personnel and a base station manned by the challenge inspector, supported by a flexible communication system, will allow facility personnel to tailor the basic model to their site. Design of the MACS system is based on maximum use of commercial equipment that is available on the international market. Design requirements for the MACS system include methods of establishing geographical position, distance measuring equipment for use in verifying dimensions on floor plans, video and two-way audio links between the mobile unit and the base station, and portability and versatility of the equipment. The MACS platform will also support deployment of selected instrumentation which the site may offer to the challenge inspection team. This paper describes the design and construction of the prototype MACS system.

Background There is a demand to make first-line treatments, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for adolescent anxiety disorders, more widely available. Internet-based CBT is proposed to circumvent access and availability barriers and reduce health care system costs. Recent reviews suggest more evidence is needed to establish the treatment effects of Internet-based CBT in children and adolescents and to determine related economic impacts. Objective This pilot trial aims to collect the necessary data to inform the planning of a full-scale RCT to test the effectiveness of the Internet-based CBT program Breathe (Being Real, Easing Anxiety: Tools Helping Electronically). Methods We are conducting a 27-month, 2-arm parallel-group, pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). Outcomes will inform the planning of a full-scale RCT aimed to test the effectiveness of Internet-based CBT with a population of adolescents with moderate to mild anxiety problems. In the pilot RCT we will: (1) define a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) for the primary outcome measure (total anxiety score using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children); (2) determine a sample size for the full-scale RCT; (3) estimate recruitment and retention rates; (4) measure intervention acceptability to inform critical intervention changes; (5) determine the use of co-interventions; and (6) conduct a cost-consequence analysis to inform a cost-effectiveness analysis in the full-scale RCT. Adolescents aged 13-17 years seeking care for an anxiety complaint from a participating emergency department, mobile or school-based crisis team, or primary care clinic are being screened for interest and eligibility. Enrolled adolescents are being randomly allocated to either 8 weeks of Internet-based CBT with limited telephone and e-mail support, or a control group with access to a static webpage listing anxiety resources. Adolescents are randomly assigned using a computer generated allocation

Described herein are devices and techniques for remotely controlling user access to a restricted computer resource. The process includes obtaining an image from a communication device of a user. An individual and a landmark are identified within the image. Determinations are made that the individual is the user and that the landmark is a predetermined landmark. Access to a restricted computing resource is granted based on the determining that the individual is the user and that the landmark is the predetermined landmark. Other embodiments are disclosed.

DCAC is a practical OS-level accesscontrol system that supports application-defined principals. It allows normal users to perform administrative operations within their privilege, enabling isolation and privilege separation for applications. It does not require centralized policy specification or management, giving applications freedom to manage their principals while the policies are still enforced by the OS. DCAC uses hierarchically-named attributes as a generic framework for user-defined policies such as groups defined by normal users. For both local and networked file systems, its execution time overhead is between 0%–9% on file system microbenchmarks, and under 1% on applications. This paper shows the design and implementation of DCAC, as well as several real-world use cases, including sandboxing applications, enforcing server applications’ security policies, supporting NFS, and authenticating user-defined sub-principals in SSH, all with minimal code changes. PMID:25426493

There needs to be a strategy for securing the privacy of patients when exchanging health records between various entities over the Internet. Despite the fact that health care providers such as Google Health and Microsoft Corp.'s Health Vault comply with the U.S Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the privacy of patients is still at risk. Several encryption schemes and accesscontrol mechanisms have been suggested to protect the disclosure of a patient's health record especially from unauthorized entities. However, by implementing these approaches, data owners are not capable of controlling and protecting the disclosure of the individual sensitive attributes of their health records. This raises the need to adopt a secure mechanism to protect personal information against unauthorized disclosure. Therefore, we propose a new Fine-grained AccessControl (FGAC) mechanism that is based on subkeys, which would allow a data owner to further control the access to his data at the column-level. We also propose a new mechanism to efficiently reduce the number of keys maintained by a data owner in cases when the users have different access privileges to different columns of the data being shared.

Using Web-based content management systems such as Blog, an end user can easily publish User Generated Content (UGC). Although publishing of UGCs is easy, controllingaccess to them is a difficult problem for end users. Currently, most of Blog sites offer no accesscontrol mechanism, and even when it is available to users, it is not sufficient to control users who do not have an account at the site, not to mention that it cannot controlaccesses to content hosted by other UGC sites. In this paper, we propose new accesscontrol architecture for UGC, in which third party entities can offer accesscontrol mechanism to users independently of UGC hosting sites. With this architecture, a user can controlaccesses to his content that might be spread over many different UGC sites, regardless of whether those sites have accesscontrol mechanism or not. The key idea to separate accesscontrol mechanism from UGC sites is to apply cryptographic accesscontrol and we implemented the idea in such a way that it requires no modification to UGC sites and Web browsers. Our prototype implementation shows that the proposed accesscontrol architecture can be easily deployed in the current Web-based communication environment and it works quite well with popular Blog sites.

Enabling the shared care paradigm, centralised or even decentralised electronic health record (EHR) systems increasingly become core applications in hospital information systems and health networks. For realising multipurpose use and reuse as well as inter-operability at knowledge level, EHR have to meet special architectural requirements. The component-oriented and model-based architecture should meet international standards. Especially in extended health networks realising inter-organisational communication and co-operation, authorisation cannot be organised at user level anymore. Therefore, models, methods and tools must be established to allow formal and structured policy definition, policy agreements, role definition, authorisation and accesscontrol. Based on the author's international engagement in EHR architecture and security standards referring to the revision of CEN ENV 13606, the GEHR/open EHR approach, HL7 and CORBA, models for health-specific and EHR-related roles, for authorisation management and accesscontrol have been developed. The basic concept is the separation of structural roles defining organisational entity-to-entity relationships and enabling specific acts on the one hand, and functional roles bound to specific activities and realising rights and duties on the other hand. Aggregation of organisational, functional, informational and technological components follows specific rules. Using UML and XML, the principles as well as some examples for analysis, design, implementation and maintenance of policy and authorisation management as well as accesscontrol have been practically implemented.

OASIS is a non-for-profit consortium that drives the development convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. It involves more than 600 organizations and individuals as well as IT leaders Sun, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. One of its standards is XACML which appeared a few years ago and now there are about 150,000 hits on Google. XACML (eXtensible AccessControl Markup Language) is not technology related. Sun published in 2004 open source Sun XACML which is in compliance with XACML 1.0. specification and now works to make it comply with XACML 2.0. The heart of XACML are attributes values of defined type and name that is to be attached to a subject, a resource, an action and an environment in which a subject request action on resource. In that way XACML is to replace Role BasedAccessControl which dominated for years. The paper examines performances in CEN 13 606 and ISO 22 600 based healthcare system which uses XACML for accesscontrol.

An important way to limit malicious insiders from distributing sensitive information is to as tightly as possible limit their access to information. This has always been the goal of accesscontrol mechanisms, but individual approaches have been shown to be inadequate. Ensemble approaches of multiple methods instantiated simultaneously have been shown to more tightly restrict access, but approaches to do so have had limited scalability (resulting in exponential calculations in some cases). In this work, we take the Next Generation AccessControl (NGAC) approach standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and demonstrate its scalability. The existing publicly available reference implementations all use cubic algorithms and thus NGAC was widely viewed as not scalable. The primary NGAC reference implementation took, for example, several minutes to simply display the set of files accessible to a user on a moderately sized system. In our approach, we take these cubic algorithms and make them linear. We do this by reformulating the set theoretic approach of the NGAC standard into a graph theoretic approach and then apply standard graph algorithms. We thus can answer important accesscontrol decision questions (e.g., which files are available to a user and which users can access a file) using linear time graph algorithms. We also provide a default linear time mechanism to visualize and review user access rights for an ensemble of accesscontrol mechanisms. Our visualization appears to be a simple file directory hierarchy but in reality is an automatically generated structure abstracted from the underlying accesscontrol graph that works with any set of simultaneously instantiated accesscontrol policies. It also provide an implicit mechanism for symbolic linking that provides a powerful access capability. Our work thus provides the first efficient implementation of NGAC while enabling user privilege review through a novel visualization approach. This

An important way to limit malicious insiders from distributing sensitive information is to as tightly as possible limit their access to information. This has always been the goal of accesscontrol mechanisms, but individual approaches have been shown to be inadequate. Ensemble approaches of multiple methods instantiated simultaneously have been shown to more tightly restrict access, but approaches to do so have had limited scalability (resulting in exponential calculations in some cases). In this work, we take the Next Generation AccessControl (NGAC) approach standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and demonstrate its scalability. The existing publicly available reference implementations all use cubic algorithms and thus NGAC was widely viewed as not scalable. The primary NGAC reference implementation took, for example, several minutes to simply display the set of files accessible to a user on a moderately sized system. In our approach, we take these cubic algorithms and make them linear. We do this by reformulating the set theoretic approach of the NGAC standard into a graph theoretic approach and then apply standard graph algorithms. We thus can answer important accesscontrol decision questions (e.g., which files are available to a user and which users can access a file) using linear time graph algorithms. We also provide a default linear time mechanism to visualize and review user access rights for an ensemble of accesscontrol mechanisms. Our visualization appears to be a simple file directory hierarchy but in reality is an automatically generated structure abstracted from the underlying accesscontrol graph that works with any set of simultaneously instantiated accesscontrol policies. It also provide an implicit mechanism for symbolic linking that provides a powerful access capability. Our work thus provides the first efficient implementation of NGAC while enabling user privilege review through a novel visualization approach. This

Introduction Early identification (EI) and brief interventions (BIs) for risky drinkers are effective tools in primary care. Lack of time in daily practice has been identified as one of the main barriers to implementation of BI. There is growing evidence that facilitated access by primary healthcare professionals (PHCPs) to a web-based BI can be a time-saving alternative to standard face-to-face BIs, but there is as yet no evidence about the effectiveness of this approach relative to conventional BI. The main aim of this study is to test non-inferiority of facilitation to a web-based BI for risky drinkers delivered by PHCP against face-to-face BI. Method and analysis A randomised controlled non-inferiority trial comparing both interventions will be performed in primary care health centres in Catalonia, Spain. Unselected adult patients attending participating centres will be given a leaflet inviting them to log on to a website to complete the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) alcohol screening questionnaire. Participants with positive results will be requested online to complete a trial module including consent, baseline assessment and randomisation to either face-to-face BI by the practitioner or BI via the alcohol reduction website. Follow-up assessment of risky drinking will be undertaken online at 3 months and 1 year using the full AUDIT and D5-EQD5 scale. Proportions of risky drinkers in each group will be calculated and non-inferiority assessed against a specified margin of 10%. Assuming reduction of 30% of risky drinkers receiving standard intervention, 1000 patients will be required to give 90% power to reject the null hypothesis. Ethics and dissemination The protocol was approved by the Ethics Commmittee of IDIAP Jordi Gol i Gurina P14/028. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, national and international conference presentations. Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02082990. PMID

Early identification (EI) and brief interventions (BIs) for risky drinkers are effective tools in primary care. Lack of time in daily practice has been identified as one of the main barriers to implementation of BI. There is growing evidence that facilitated access by primary healthcare professionals (PHCPs) to a web-based BI can be a time-saving alternative to standard face-to-face BIs, but there is as yet no evidence about the effectiveness of this approach relative to conventional BI. The main aim of this study is to test non-inferiority of facilitation to a web-based BI for risky drinkers delivered by PHCP against face-to-face BI. A randomised controlled non-inferiority trial comparing both interventions will be performed in primary care health centres in Catalonia, Spain. Unselected adult patients attending participating centres will be given a leaflet inviting them to log on to a website to complete the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) alcohol screening questionnaire. Participants with positive results will be requested online to complete a trial module including consent, baseline assessment and randomisation to either face-to-face BI by the practitioner or BI via the alcohol reduction website. Follow-up assessment of risky drinking will be undertaken online at 3 months and 1 year using the full AUDIT and D5-EQD5 scale. Proportions of risky drinkers in each group will be calculated and non-inferiority assessed against a specified margin of 10%. Assuming reduction of 30% of risky drinkers receiving standard intervention, 1000 patients will be required to give 90% power to reject the null hypothesis. The protocol was approved by the Ethics Commmittee of IDIAP Jordi Gol i Gurina P14/028. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, national and international conference presentations. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02082990. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted

Improvement of coordination of all health and social care actors in the patient pathways is an important issue in many countries. Health Information (HI) technology has been considered as a potentially effective answer to this issue. The French Health Ministry first funded the development of five TSN ("Territoire de Soins Numérique"/Digital health territories) projects, aiming at improving healthcare coordination and access to information for healthcare providers, patients and the population, and at improving healthcare professionals work organization. The French Health Ministry then launched a call for grant to fund one research project consisting in evaluating the TSN projects implementation and impact and in developing a model for HI technology evaluation. EvaTSN is mainly based on a controlled before-after study design. Data collection covers three periods: before TSN program implementation, during early TSN program implementation and at late TSN program implementation, in the five TSN projects' territories and in five comparison territories. Three populations will be considered: "TSN-targeted people" (healthcare system users and people having characteristics targeted by the TSN projects), "TSN patient users" (people included in TSN experimentations or using particular services) and "TSN professional users" (healthcare professionals involved in TSN projects). Several samples will be made in each population depending on the objective, axis and stage of the study. Four types of data sources are considered: 1) extractions from the French National Heath Insurance Database (SNIIRAM) and the French Autonomy Personalized Allowance database, 2) Ad hoc surveys collecting information on knowledge of TSN projects, TSN program use, ease of use, satisfaction and understanding, TSN pathway experience and appropriateness of hospital admissions, 3) qualitative analyses using semi-directive interviews and focus groups and document analyses and 4) extractions of TSN

OCG employs stringent human subjects’ protection and data access policies to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the research participants. Depending on the risk of patient identification, OCG programs data are available to the scientific community in two tiers: open or controlledaccess. Both types of data can be accessed through its corresponding OCG program-specific data matrix or portal. Open-access Data

Objective The research determined the usage and satisfaction levels with one of two point-of-care (PoC) resources among health care providers in a rural state. Methods In this randomized controlled trial, twenty-eight health care providers in rural areas were stratified by occupation and region, then randomized into either the DynaMed or the AccessMedicine study arm. Study participants were physicians, physician assistants, and nurses. A pre- and post-study survey measured participants' attitudes toward different information resources and their information-seeking activities. Medical student investigators provided training and technical support for participants. Data analyses consisted of analysis of variance (ANOVA), paired t tests, and Cohen's d statistic to compare pre- and post-study effects sizes. Results Participants in both the DynaMed and the AccessMedicine arms of the study reported increased satisfaction with their respective PoC resource, as expected. Participants in both arms also reported that they saved time in finding needed information. At baseline, both arms reported too little information available, which increased to “about right amounts of information” at the completion of the study. DynaMed users reported a Cohen's d increase of +1.50 compared to AccessMedicine users' reported use of 0.82. DynaMed users reported d2 satisfaction increases of 9.48 versus AccessMedicine satisfaction increases of 0.59 using a Cohen's d. Conclusion Participants in the DynaMed arm of the study used this clinically oriented PoC more heavily than the users of the textbook-basedAccessMedicine. In terms of user satisfaction, DynaMed users reported higher levels of satisfaction than the users of AccessMedicine. PMID:26807050

The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., is the only medical school in the state. We performed 235,000 procedures in the 2001-02 fiscal year. All imaging services within the radiology department are networked to a PACS and are filmless. The elimination of film required that we decentralize our traditional file room to allow easy access to our radiology network across the campus. In our facility, there are three levels of image access: Diagnostic Quality, Review Quality and Web Access. Diagnostic Quality requires top-of-the-line workstations and monitors and is the most expensive. Review Quality workstations represent some savings over Diagnostic and are used in the ICU, orthopedics and surgery. Web Access appears to satisfy most areas outside the main diagnostic department. The account set-up procedure is simple because it uses our intranet email system. Images are easily pasted into presentation applications for articles and conferences. However, the main advantage of Web Access is the low cost. The downside of Web Access is that the images are for review only and are limited by the quality of the monitor in use. It is also somewhat cumbersome to retrieve old or comparison images via this method. The Web only holds approximately 45 days of the most recent images, therefore older studies may not be available. The deployment of this Web-based service has aided in our efforts to reduce the amount of film we print and has also been beneficial in improving patient care through faster service.

The adoption of electronically formatted medical records, so called Electronic Health Records (EHRs), has become extremely important in healthcare systems to enable the exchange of medical information among stakeholders. An EHR generally consists of data with different types and sensitivity degrees which must be selectively shared based on the need-to-know principle. Security mechanisms are required to guarantee that only authorized users have access to specific portions of such critical record for legitimate purposes. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for modelling accesscontrol scheme for composite EHRs. Our model formulates the semantics and structural composition of an EHR document, from which we introduce a notion of authorized zones of the composite EHR at different granularity levels, taking into consideration of several important criteria such as data types, intended purposes and information sensitivities.

There is a strong body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of brief interventions by primary care professionals for risky drinkers. However, implementation levels remain low because of time constraints and other factors. Facilitated access to an alcohol reduction website offers primary care professionals a time-saving alternative to standard face-to-face intervention, but it is not known whether it is as effective. A randomised controlled non-inferiority trial for risky drinkers comparing facilitated access to a dedicated website with standard face-to-face brief intervention to be conducted in primary care settings in the Region of Friuli Giulia Venezia, Italy. Adult patients will be given a leaflet inviting them to log on to a website to complete the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) alcohol screening questionnaire. Screen positives will be requested to complete an online trial module including consent, baseline assessment and randomisation to either standard intervention by the practitioner or facilitated access to an alcohol reduction website. Follow-up assessment of risky drinking will be undertaken online at 1 month, 3 months and 1 year using the full AUDIT questionnaire. Proportions of risky drinkers in each group will be calculated and non-inferiority assessed against a specified margin of 10%. Assuming a reduction of 30% of risky drinkers receiving standard intervention, 1000 patients will be required to give 90% power to reject the null hypothesis. The protocol was approved by the Isontina Independent Local Ethics Committee on 14 June 2012. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, national and international conference presentations and public events involving the local administrations of the towns where the trial participants are resident. Trial registration number NCT: 01638338.

Operating systems rely heavily on accesscontrol mechanisms to achieve security goals and defend against remote and local attacks. The complexities of modern accesscontrol mechanisms and the scale of policy configurations are often overwhelming to system administrators and software developers. Therefore, mis-configurations are common, and the…

Operating systems rely heavily on accesscontrol mechanisms to achieve security goals and defend against remote and local attacks. The complexities of modern accesscontrol mechanisms and the scale of policy configurations are often overwhelming to system administrators and software developers. Therefore, mis-configurations are common, and the…

... each MARSEC Level, including those points where TWIC accesscontrol provisions will be applied. Each... escorting them; (4) Procedures for identifying authorized and unauthorized persons at any MARSEC level; and... accesscontrols, particularly if they are to be applied on a random or occasional basis. (f) MARSEC...

Satellite Control Networks (SCN) have provided launch control for space lift vehicles; tracking, telemetry and commanding (TTC) for on-orbit satellites; and, test support for space experiments since the 1960s. Currently, SCNs encounter a new challenge: how to maintain the high reliability of services when sharing the spectrum with emerging commercial services. To achieve this goal, the capability of multiple satellites reception is deserved as an update/modernization of SCN in the future. In this paper, we conducts an investigation of multiple access techniques in SCN scenario, e.g., frequency division multiple access (FDMA) and coded division multiple access (CDMA). First, we introduce two upgrade options of SCN based on FDMA and CDMA techniques. Correspondingly, we also provide their performance analysis, especially the system improvement in spectrum efficiency and interference mitigation. Finally, to determine the optimum upgrade option, this work uses CRISP, i.e., Cost, Risk, Installation, Supportability and Performance, as the baseline approach for a comprehensive trade study of these two options. Extensive numerical and simulation results are presented to illustrate the theoretical development.

As more enterprises are enticed to move data to a cloud environment to enhance data sharing and reduce operating costs by exploiting shared resources, concerns have risen over the ability to secure information within the cloud. This paper examines how a traditional Identity and AccessControl (IDAM) architecture can be adapted to address security concerns of a cloud environment. We propose changing the paradigm of IDAM form a pure trust model to a risk based model will enable information to be protected securely in a cloud environment without impacting efficiencies of cloud environments.

This study presents a systematic literature review of accesscontrol for electronic health record systems to protect patient's privacy. Articles from 2006 to 2016 were extracted from the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Science Direct, MEDLINE, and MetaPress using broad eligibility criteria, and chosen for inclusion based on analysis of ISO22600. Cryptographic standards and methods were left outside the scope of this review. Three broad classes of models are being actively investigated and developed: accesscontrol for electronic health records, accesscontrol for interoperability, and accesscontrol for risk analysis. Traditional role-basedaccesscontrol models are extended with spatial, temporal, probabilistic, dynamic, and semantic aspects to capture contextual information and provide granular accesscontrol. Maintenance of audit trails and facilities for overriding normal roles to allow full access in emergency cases are common features. Access privilege frameworks utilizing ontology-based knowledge representation for defining the rules have attracted considerable interest, due to the higher level of abstraction that makes it possible to model domain knowledge and validate access requests efficiently.

Accesscontrol is an important method to improve network security and prevent protected resources from being used by some nodes without authority. Moreover, mobility is an important trend of internet. In this paper, based on the architecture of hierarchical mobile IPv6, we proposed an effective accesscontrol approach to support mobility in IPv6 networks, which can ensure the operation of accesscontrol when a mobile node roams in these domains with different polices, with decreased delay of access negotiation and cost of delivering messages.

In this paper, we propose a tamper resistant prescription RFID accesscontrol protocol for different authorized readers. Not only the authentication mechanism but also the access right authorization mechanism is designed in our scheme. Only the specific doctor, usually the patient's doctor, can access the tag. Moreover, some related information of patient's prescription is attached to a RFID tag for tamper resistance. The patients' rights will be guaranteed.

This paper analyzes: (1) the bibliographic access to publications in urban studies via printed secondary sources; (2) development and scope of classification systems and of vocabulary control for urban studies; and (3) currently accessible automated collections of bibliographic citations. Urban studies is defined as "an agglomeration of…

..., DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION LICENSING LICENSE TO OPERATE A LAUNCH SITE Responsibilities of a Licensee § 420.53 Control of public access. (a) A licensee shall prevent unauthorized access to the launch site, and... the launch site of safety rules and emergency and evacuation procedures prior to that person's...

Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) tactical battlefield systems must provide the right information and resources to the right individuals at the right time. At the same time, the C4ISR system must enforce accesscontrols to prevent the wrong individuals from obtaining sensitive information, or consuming scarce resources. Because lives, missions and property depend upon them, these accesscontrol mechanisms must be effective, reliable, efficient and flexible. The mechanisms employed must suit the nature of the items that are to be protected, as well as the varieties of access policies that must be enforced, and the types of access that will be made to these items. Some accesscontrol technologies are inherently centralized, while others are suitable for distributed implementation. The C4ISR architect must select from among the available technologies a combination of mechanisms that eases the burden of policy administration, but is inherently survivable, accurate, resource efficient, and which provides low latency. This paper explores various alternative access enforcement mechanisms, and assesses their effectiveness in managing policy-driven accesscontrol within the battlespace.

Examines how the new sociology of science can approach data access issues. A perspective is developed based on an analysis of the process of scientific production, data streams, and intellectual policy issues. (Contains 55 references.) (JLB)

The purpose of this document is to analyze the baseline AccessControl System for the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and to assess its effectiveness at controllingaccess to hazardous locations during full NIF operations. It reviews the various hazards present during a NIF shot sequence, and evaluates the effectiveness of the applicable set of controls at preventing access while the hazards are present. It considers only those hazards that could potentially be lethal. In addition, various types of technologies that might be applicable at NIF are reviewed, as are systems currently in use at other facilities requiring accesscontrol for safety reasons. Recommendations on how this system might be modified to reduce risk are made.

The lack of performance of graphene-based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction (ORR) is a major concern for fuel cells which can be mastered using nanocomposites. This work is highlighted by the optimization of nitrogen(N)-doped graphene/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposite’s ORR performance examined by galvanostatic measurements in realistically approached glucose half-cells. Obtained results mark an essential step for the development of nanocarbon-based cathodes, as we specifically evaluate the electrode performance under real fuel cell conditions. The 2D simulations exclusively represent an important approach for understanding the catalytic efficiency of the nanocomposite with unique structure. The kinetics features extracted from simulations are consistent with the experimentally determined kinetics. The morphology analysis reveals a 3D porous structure. The results demonstrate that the incorporation of CNTs implements mesoscale channels for improved mass transport and leads to efficient 4-electron transfer and enhanced overall catalytic activity in pH-neutral media. The nanocomposite shows increased specific surface area of 142 m2 g-1, positively shifted ORR onset potential of 67 mV and higher open circuit potential of 268 mV versus Ag/AgCl compared to N-graphene (11 m2 g-1, -17, 220 mV). The findings are supported by 2D simulations giving qualitative evidence to the significant role of CNTs for achieving better accessibility of pores, i.e. enabling improved transfer of oxygen and OH-, and providing more reaction sites in the nanocomposite. The nanocomposite demonstrates better ORR performance than constituent components regarding potential application in miniaturized single-compartment glucose-based fuel cells.

The current work examined how social factors influence self-control. Current conceptions of state self-control treat it largely as a function of regulatory capacity. The authors propose that state self-control might also be influenced by social factors because of regulatory accessibility. Studies 1 through 4 provide evidence that individuals’ state self-control is influenced by the trait and state self-control of salient others such that thinking of others with good trait or state self-control leads to increases in state self-control and thinking of others with bad trait or state self-control leads to decreases in state self-control. Study 5 provides evidence that the salience of significant others influences both regulatory accessibility and state self-control. Combined, these studies suggest that the effects of social influences on state self-control occur through multiple mechanisms. PMID:20008967

The NASA Lewis Research Center's Remote AccessControl Room (RACR) uses off-the-shelf video conferencing software integrated with existing facility data systems to provide access to the test data by networking from virtually anywhere in the country. The system allows research engineers in remote locations to participate in tests and monitor data in real time just as if they were present in the control room.

Future Space Shuttle flights shall be characterized by activities necessary to further build the International Space Station, ISS. During these missions limited resources are available to conduct biological experiments in space. The Shuttles' Middeck is a very suitable place to conduct science during the ISS assembly missions or dedicated science missions. The BIOPACK, which flew its first mission during the STS-107, provides a versatile Middeck Locker based research tool for gravitational biology studies. The core facility occupies the space of only two Middeck Lockers. Experiment temperatures are controlled for bacteria, plant, invertebrate and mammalian cultures. Gravity levels and profiles can be set ranging from 0 to 2.0 x g on three independent centrifuges. This provides the experimenter with a 1.0 x g on-board reference and intermediate hypogravity and hypergravity data points to investigate e.g. threshold levels in biological responses. Temperature sensitive items can be stored in the facilities' -10 degrees C and +4 degrees C stowage areas. During STS-107 the facility also included a small glovebox (GBX) and passive temperature controlled units (PTCU). The GBX provides the experimenter with two extra levels of containment for safe sample handling. This biological research facility is a late access (L-10 hrs) laboratory, which, when reaching orbit, could automatically be starting up reducing important experiment lag-time and valuable crew time. The system is completely telecommanded when needed. During flight system parameters like temperatures, centrifuge speeds, experiment commanding or sensor readouts can be monitored and changed when needed. Although ISS provides a wide range of research facilities there is still need for an STS-based late access facility such as the BIOPACK providing experimenters with a very versatile research cabinet for biological experiments under microgravity and in-flight control conditions.

Cadmium selenide (CdSe) switches were devised to control the luminous emittance of electroluminescent cells in a solid-state display. The technique...purpose of this contract was to establish the feasibility of utilizing the hysteretic effect in cadmium selenide to provide switching and storage to an...array of electroluminescent cells by investigating the cadmium selenide material, by studying panel structure, and by investigating the addressing of

Designing proper models for authorization and accesscontrol for the electronic patient record (EPR) is essential to wide scale use of the EPR in large health organizations. This work presents MAAC (Middleware for Authentication and AccessControl), a tool that implements a contextual role-basedaccesscontrol (RBAC) authorization model. RBAC regulates user"s access to computers resources based on their organizational roles. A contextual authorization uses environmental information available at access-request time, like user/patient relationship, in order to decide whether a user has the right to access an EPR resource. The software architecture where MAAC is implemented uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, Java programming language and the CORBA/OMG standards CORBA Security Service and Resource Access Decision Facility. With those open and distributed standards, heterogeneous EPR components can request user authentication and access authorization services in a unified and consistent fashion across multiple platforms.

Leisure is a very important aspect in our everyday life; and gaming is one of the main ways to it. Depending on the particular situation of each person, the way of playing could be very different. Motivation, preferences, skills, knowledge are some of the factors that influences this experience. When the person has a disability, additional agents come to scene such as cognitive level and mobility. Besides the design of the game, these factors clearly affect how the person interacts with the game; its user interface. In this paper we present a tool that allows people with disabilities to play games with a normalized user interface. This tool a) manages several wireless kinetic remote controllers, e.g. the Wiimotes; b) can be configured to capture any voluntary movements users could do and c) convert them into the specific inputs required by existing adapted games. As a result, users with disabilities can experience and enjoy games that were previously inaccessible to them.

This paper investigates networked control systems whose actuators communicate with the controller via a limited number of unreliable channels. The access to the channels is decided by a so-called group random access protocol, which is modelled as a binary Markov sequence. Data packet dropouts in the channels are modelled as independent Bernoulli processes. For such systems, a systematic characterisation for controller synthesis is established and stated in terms of the transition probabilities of the Markov protocol and the packet dropout probabilities. The results are illustrated via a numerical example.

The latter techniques intro- 138 duce some modification to the data stored in a database or to the requested statistics during the processing of a...for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of...access to Carol’s cal- endar information. Accesscontrol to information has been well investigated in the context of informa- tion stored in distributed

Two freely accessible crystallographic databases are discussed: the Crystallographic Open Database (COD, http://crystallography.net) which contains over 37,000 crystal structures, and the Nano-Crystallography Database (NCD, http://nanocrystallography.research.pdx.edu) which we recently started to support image-based nanocrystallography and (nano) materials science education. Both databases collect crystallographic relevant information in a standardized format; the Crystallographic Information File (CIF). CIF is the standard file format adopted by the International Union of Crystallography (http://iucr.org) for the archiving and distribution of crystallographic information. A subset of the COD, the Predicted Crystallographic Online Database, allows for 3D structural displays of structural polyhedra and wireframes of approximately 2,600 entries. Since electron microscopist are interested in simple, yet technologically important materials, the crystallographic information for those materials will be included in our database. At our NCD site, entries in the COD and the NCD can be visualized in three dimensions (3D) along with (2D) lattice fringe fingerprints plots. The latter supports the identification of unknown nanocrystal phases from high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images. Morphological crystal information from the database ``Bestimmungstabellen f"ur Kristalle/ ???????????? ??????????,'' (A.K. Boldyrew and W.W. Doliwo-Dobrowolsky, Zentrales Wissenschaftlichers Institute der Geologie und Sch"urfung, Leningrad/ Moscow, 1937/1939) will also be included in the NCD to support image-based nanocrystallography in 3D.

The Internet based distributed large scale information systems implements attribute basedaccesscontrol (ABAC) rather than Role BasedAccessControl (RBAC). The reason is that the Internet is identity less and that ABAC scales better. EXtensible AccessControl Markup Language is standardized language for writing accesscontrol policies, accesscontrol requests and accesscontrol responses in ABAC. XACML can provide decentralized administration and credentials distribution. In year 2002 version of CEN ENV 13 606 attributes have been attached to EHCR components and in such a system ABAC and XACML have been easy to implement. This paper presents writing XACML policies in the case when attributes are in hierarchical structure. It is presented two possible solutions to write XACML policy in that case and that the solution when set functions are used is more compact and provides 10% better performances.

Virtual reality (VR) simulators are widely used to familiarize surgical novices with laparoscopy, but VR training methods differ in efficacy. In the present trial, self-controlled basic VR training (SC-training) was tested against training based on peer-group-derived benchmarks (PGD-training). First, novice laparoscopic residents were randomized into a SC group (n = 34), and a group using PGD-benchmarks (n = 34) for basic laparoscopic training. After completing basic training, both groups performed 60 VR laparoscopic cholecystectomies for performance analysis. Primary endpoints were simulator metrics; secondary endpoints were program adherence, trainee motivation, and training efficacy. Altogether, 66 residents completed basic training, and 3,837 of 3,960 (96.8 %) cholecystectomies were available for analysis. Course adherence was good, with only two dropouts, both in the SC-group. The PGD-group spent more time and repetitions in basic training until the benchmarks were reached and subsequently showed better performance in the readout cholecystectomies: Median time (gallbladder extraction) showed significant differences of 520 s (IQR 354-738 s) in SC-training versus 390 s (IQR 278-536 s) in the PGD-group (p < 0.001) and 215 s (IQR 175-276 s) in experts, respectively. Path length of the right instrument also showed significant differences, again with the PGD-training group being more efficient. Basic VR laparoscopic training based on PGD benchmarks with external assessment is superior to SC training, resulting in higher trainee motivation and better performance in simulated laparoscopic cholecystectomies. We recommend such a basic course based on PGD benchmarks before advancing to more elaborate VR training.

Personally controlled health records (PCHR) systems have emerged to allow patients to control their own medical data. In a PCHR system, all the access privileges to a patient's data are granted by the patient. However, in many emergency cases, it is impossible for the patient to participate in access authorization on site when immediate medical treatment is needed. To solve the emergency access authorization problem in the absence of patients, we consider two cases: a) the requester is already in the PCHR system but has not obtained the access privilege of the patient's health records, and b) the requester does not even have an account in the PCHR system to submit its request. For each of the two cases, we present a method for emergency access authorization, utilizing the weighted voting and source authentication cryptographic techniques. Our methods provide an effective, secure and private solution for emergency access authorization, that makes the existing PCHR system frameworks more practical and thus improves the patients' experiences of health care when using PCHR systems. We have implemented a prototype system as a proof of concept.

Described herein are devices and techniques for remotely controlling user access to a restricted computer resource. The process includes pre-determining an association of the restricted computer resource and computer-resource-proximal environmental information. Indicia of user-proximal environmental information are received from a user requesting access to the restricted computer resource. Received indicia of user-proximal environmental information are compared to associated computer-resource-proximal environmental information. User access to the restricted computer resource is selectively granted responsive to a favorable comparison in which the user-proximal environmental information is sufficiently similar to the computer-resource proximal environmental information. In at least some embodiments, the process further includes comparing user-supplied biometric measure and comparing it with a predetermined association of at least one biometric measure of an authorized user. Access to the restricted computer resource is granted in response to a favorable comparison.

This paper introduces the technology of two pioneering patents for the secure distribution of information and intellectual property. The seminal technology has been used in the control of sensitive material such as medical records and imagery in distributed networks. It lends itself to the implementation of an open architecture accesscontrol system that provides local or remote user selective access to digital information stored on any computer system or storage medium, down to the data element, pixel, and sub-pixel levels. Use of this technology is especially suited for electronic publishing, health care records, MIS, and auditing.

Primary rubber dam retention affects attachment of the latex sheet to the anchor teeth bordering the isolated working field. Secondary rubber dam retention is the provision of an effective seal at the dam-tooth junction, which is essential to the maintenance of adequate access and moisture control within the working field. Practical hints are offered to optimize access and moisture control through well-planned and properly executed secondary retention of classic rubber dam applications. In addition, innovative solutions to the limitations of general field isolation, which pertain mostly to secondary retention of the unrestrained buccal and lingual curtains of the slit dam, are introduced.

With the development of information technology and medical technology, medical information has been developed from traditional paper records into electronic medical records, which have now been widely applied. The new-style medical information exchange system "personal health records (PHR)" is gradually developed. PHR is a kind of health records maintained and recorded by individuals. An ideal personal health record could integrate personal medical information from different sources and provide complete and correct personal health and medical summary through the Internet or portable media under the requirements of security and privacy. A lot of personal health records are being utilized. The patient-centered PHR information exchange system allows the public autonomously maintain and manage personal health records. Such management is convenient for storing, accessing, and sharing personal medical records. With the emergence of Cloud computing, PHR service has been transferred to storing data into Cloud servers that the resources could be flexibly utilized and the operation cost can be reduced. Nevertheless, patients would face privacy problem when storing PHR data into Cloud. Besides, it requires a secure protection scheme to encrypt the medical records of each patient for storing PHR into Cloud server. In the encryption process, it would be a challenge to achieve accurately accessing to medical records and corresponding to flexibility and efficiency. A new PHR accesscontrol scheme under Cloud computing environments is proposed in this study. With Lagrange interpolation polynomial to establish a secure and effective PHR information access scheme, it allows to accurately access to PHR with security and is suitable for enormous multi-users. Moreover, this scheme also dynamically supports multi-users in Cloud computing environments with personal privacy and offers legal authorities to access to PHR. From security and effectiveness analyses, the proposed PHR access

Several query federation engines have been proposed for accessing public Linked Open Data sources. However, in many domains, resources are sensitive and access to these resources is tightly controlled by stakeholders; consequently, privacy is a major concern when federating queries over such datasets. In the Healthcare and Life Sciences (HCLS) domain real-world datasets contain sensitive statistical information: strict ownership is granted to individuals working in hospitals, research labs, clinical trial organisers, etc. Therefore, the legal and ethical concerns on (i) preserving the anonymity of patients (or clinical subjects); and (ii) respecting data ownership through accesscontrol; are key challenges faced by the data analytics community working within the HCLS domain. Likewise statistical data play a key role in the domain, where the RDF Data Cube Vocabulary has been proposed as a standard format to enable the exchange of such data. However, to the best of our knowledge, no existing approach has looked to optimise federated queries over such statistical data. We present SAFE: a query federation engine that enables policy-aware access to sensitive statistical datasets represented as RDF data cubes. SAFE is designed specifically to query statistical RDF data cubes in a distributed setting, where accesscontrol is coupled with source selection, user profiles and their access rights. SAFE proposes a join-aware source selection method that avoids wasteful requests to irrelevant and unauthorised data sources. In order to preserve anonymity and enforce stricter accesscontrol, SAFE's indexing system does not hold any data instances-it stores only predicates and endpoints. The resulting data summary has a significantly lower index generation time and size compared to existing engines, which allows for faster updates when sources change. We validate the performance of the system with experiments over real-world datasets provided by three clinical organisations as

Attention is given to a communication network consisting of an arbitrary number of nodes which can communicate with each other via a time-division multiple access (TDMA) broadcast channel. The reported investigation is concerned with the development of efficient distributed multiple access protocols for traffic consisting primarily of single packet messages in a datagram mode of operation. The motivation for the design of the protocols came from the consideration of efficient multiple access utilization of moderate to high bandwidth (4-40 Mbit/s capacity) communication satellite channels used for the transmission of short (1000-10,000 bits) fixed length packets. Under these circumstances, the ratio of roundtrip propagation time to packet transmission time is between 100 to 10,000. It is shown how a TDMA channel can be adaptively shared by datagram traffic and constant bandwidth users such as in digital voice applications. The distributed reservation control protocols described are a hybrid between contention and reservation protocols.

Attention is given to a communication network consisting of an arbitrary number of nodes which can communicate with each other via a time-division multiple access (TDMA) broadcast channel. The reported investigation is concerned with the development of efficient distributed multiple access protocols for traffic consisting primarily of single packet messages in a datagram mode of operation. The motivation for the design of the protocols came from the consideration of efficient multiple access utilization of moderate to high bandwidth (4-40 Mbit/s capacity) communication satellite channels used for the transmission of short (1000-10,000 bits) fixed length packets. Under these circumstances, the ratio of roundtrip propagation time to packet transmission time is between 100 to 10,000. It is shown how a TDMA channel can be adaptively shared by datagram traffic and constant bandwidth users such as in digital voice applications. The distributed reservation control protocols described are a hybrid between contention and reservation protocols.

Large scale distributed systems consists of workstations, mainframe computers, supercomputers and other types of servers, all connected by a computer network. These systems are being used in a variety of applications including the support of collaborative scientific research. In such an environment, issues of accesscontrol and privacy arise. Accesscontrol is required for several reasons, including the protection of sensitive resources and cost control. Privacy is also required for similar reasons, including the protection of a researcher's proprietary results. A possible architecture for integrating available computer and communications security technologies into a system that meet these requirements is described. This architecture is meant as a starting point for discussion, rather that the final answer.

at the 2009 International Lisp Conference, Cambridge MA March 22-25, 2009. 14. ABSTRACT Computer security is becoming an increasingly important...flow and access that would limit the damage due to a penetration. In this paper, we present an accesscontrol system for Lisp -like languages that...language as dynamic as Common- lisp is a serious challenge; we present techniques based on use of the Meta- Object Protocol (MOP) that achieve this

Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with a typical survival of three to five years. Epidemiological studies using paper-based questionnaires in individual countries or continents have failed to find widely accepted risk factors for the disease. The advantages of online versus paper-based questionnaires have been extensively reviewed, but few online epidemiological studies into human neurodegenerative diseases have so far been undertaken. Objective To design a Web-based questionnaire to identify environmental risk factors for ALS and enable international comparisons of these risk factors. Methods A Web-based epidemiological questionnaire for ALS has been developed based on experience gained from administering a previous continent-wide paper-based questionnaire for this disease. New and modified questions have been added from our previous paper-based questionnaire, from literature searches, and from validated ALS questionnaires supplied by other investigators. New criteria to allow the separation of familial and sporadic ALS cases have been included. The questionnaire addresses many risk factors that have already been proposed for ALS, as well as a number that have not yet been rigorously examined. To encourage participation, responses are collected anonymously and no personally identifiable information is requested. The survey is being translated into a number of languages which will allow many people around the world to read and answer it in their own language. Results After the questionnaire had been online for 4 months, it had 379 respondents compared to only 46 respondents for the same initial period using a paper-based questionnaire. The average age of the first 379 web questionnaire respondents was 54 years compared to the average age of 60 years for the first 379 paper questionnaire respondents. The questionnaire is soon to be promoted in a number of countries through ALS associations and disease

The DOE has identified the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ARGUS system as the standard entry control system for the DOE Complex. ARGUS integrates several key functions, specifically, badging, entry control, and verification of clearance status. Not all sites need or can afford an ARGUS system. Such sites are therefore limited to commercial equipment which provide ARGUS like features. In this project an alternative way to integrate commercial equipment into an integrated system to include badging, accesscontrol, property control, and automated verification of clearance status has been investigated. Such a system would provide smaller sites the same functionality as is provided by ARGUS. Further, it would allow sites to fully participate in the DOE`s concept of Complex wide accesscontrol. This multi-year task is comprised of three phases. Phase 1, system requirements and definitions, and phase 2, software and hardware development, were completed during fiscal year 1994. This report covers these two phases and the demonstration system which resulted. Phase three would employ the demonstration system to evaluate system performance, identify operational limits and to integrate additional features. The demonstration system includes a badging station, a database server, a managers workstation, an entry control system, and a property protection system. The functions have been integrated through the use of custom interfaces and operator screens which greatly increase ease of use.

This paper reports that the authors developed for the Air Force the Mark VI Personal Identity Verifier (PIV) for controllingaccess to a fixed or mobile ICBM site, a computer terminal, or mainframe. The Mark VI records the digitized silhouettes of four fingers of each hand on an AT and T smart card. Like fingerprints, finger shapes, lengths, and widths constitute an unguessable biometric password. A Security Officer enrolls an authorized person who places each hand, in turn, on a backlighted panel. An overhead scanning camera records the right and left hand reference templates on the smart card. The Security Officer adds to the card: name, personal identification number (PIN), and access restrictions such as permitted days of the week, times of day, and doors. To gain access, cardowner inserts card into a reader slot and places either hand on the panel. Resulting access template is matched to the reference template by three sameness algorithms. The final match score is an average of 12 scores (each of the four fingers, matched for shape, length, and width), expressing the degree of sameness. (A perfect match would score 100.00.) The final match score is compared to a predetermined score (threshold), generating an accept or reject decision.

This paper proposes the design and development of Role- basedAccessControl (RBAC) model for the Single Sign-On (SSO) Web-OLAP query spanning over multiple data warehouses (DWs). The model is based on PKI Authentication and Privilege Management Infrastructure (PMI); it presents a binding model of RBAC authorization based on dimension privilege specified in attribute certificate (AC) and user identification. Particularly, the way of attribute mapping between DW user authentication and privilege of dimensional access is illustrated. In our approach, we apply the multi-agent system to automate flexible and effective management of user authentication, role delegation as well as system accountability. Finally, the paper culminates in the prototype system A-COLD (AccessControl of web-OLAP over multiple DWs) that incorporates the OLAP features and authentication and authorization enforcement in the multi-user and multi-data warehouse environment.

Global Access-controlled Transfer e-frame (GATe) was designed to take advantage of the patterns that occur during an electronic record transfer process. The e-frame (or electronic framework or platform) is the foundation for developing secure information transfer to meet classified and unclassified business processes and is particularly useful when there is a need to share information with various entities in a controlled and secure environment. It can share, search, upload, download and retrieve sensitive information, as well as provides reporting capabilities.

The Urban University and Neighborhood Network, a group dedicated to bringing together Ohio's urban universities and neighborhood-based organizations (NBOs), has been studying NBO access to the Internet. Of 189 Ohio NBOs responding to a survey, only 3 have full access to the Internet. The small size and small budget of many of the state's NBOs…

To analyze social health organizations in the light of public control and the guarantee of equity of access to health services. Utilizing the case study technique, two social health organizations in the metropolitan region of São Paulo were selected. The analytical categories were equity of access and public control, and these were based on interviews with key informants and technical-administrative reports. It was observed that the overall funding and administrative control of the social health organizations are functions of the state administrator. The presence of a local administrator is important for ensuring equity of access. Public control is expressed through supervisory actions, by means of accounting and financial procedures. Equity of access and public control are not taken into consideration in the administration of these organizations. The central question lies in the capacity of the public authorities to have a presence in implementing this model at the local level, thereby ensuring equity of access and taking public control into consideration.

Virtualization is a new technology that creates virtual environments based on the existing physical resources. This article evaluates effect of virtualization techniques on control servers and access method in storage systems [1, 2]. In control server virtualization, we have presented a tile based evaluation based on heterogeneous workloads to compare several key parameters and demonstrate effectiveness of virtualization techniques. Moreover, we have evaluated the virtualized model using VMotion techniques and maximum consolidation. In access method, we have prepared three different scenarios using direct, semi-virtual, and virtual attachment models. We have evaluated the proposed models with several workloads including OLTP database, data streaming, file server, web server, etc. Results of evaluation for different criteria confirm that server virtualization technique has high throughput and CPU usage as well as good performance with noticeable agility. Also virtual technique is a successful alternative for accessing to the storage systems especially in large capacity systems. This technique can therefore be an effective solution for expansion of storage area and reduction of access time. Results of different evaluation and measurements demonstrate that the virtualization in control server and full virtual access provide better performance and more agility as well as more utilization in the systems and improve business continuity plan.

We consider a distributed joint random access and power control scheme for interference management in wireless ad hoc networks. To derive decentralized solutions that do not require any cooperation among the users, we formulate this problem as non-cooperative joint random access and power control game, in which each user minimizes its average transmission cost with a given rate constraint. Using supermodular game theory, the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium are established. Furthermore, we present an asynchronous distributed algorithm to compute the solution of the game based on myopic best response updates, which converges to Nash equilibrium globally.

Multicasting is a necessity for a broadband metro-area-network; however security problems exist with current multicast protocols. A stateful multicast accesscontrol mechanism, based on MAPE, is proposed. The architecture of MAPE is discussed, as well as the states maintained and messages exchanged. The scheme is flexible and scalable. (Author/AEF)

Multidomain environments where multiple organizations interoperate with each other are becoming a reality as can be seen in emerging Internet-based enterprise applications. Accesscontrol to ensure secure interoperation in such an environment is a crucial challenge. A multidomain environment can be categorized as "tightly-coupled" and…

This report contains the guidance Functional Requirements for an Integrated Intrusion Detection and AccessControl Annunciator System, and survey results of selected commercial systems. The survey questions were based upon the functional requirements; therefore, the results reflect which and sometimes how the guidance recommendations were met.

A model which relates the accesscontrol and indexing functions. The model is based on concept protection which allows a practically unbounded number of levels (subsets) of protection without requiring a fixed hierarchy among the levels. This protection is offered independently for each of the user operations allowed. (Author)

We developed an online multimedia event detection (MED) system. However, there are a secure accesscontrol issue and a large scale robust representation issue when we want to integrate traditional event detection algorithms into the online environment. For the first issue, we proposed a tree proxy-based and service-oriented accesscontrol (TPSAC) model based on the traditional role basedaccesscontrol model. Verification experiments were conducted on the CloudSim simulation platform, and the results showed that the TPSAC model is suitable for the accesscontrol of dynamic online environments. For the second issue, inspired by the object-bank scene descriptor, we proposed a 1000-object-bank (1000OBK) event descriptor. Feature vectors of the 1000OBK were extracted from response pyramids of 1000 generic object detectors which were trained on standard annotated image datasets, such as the ImageNet dataset. A spatial bag of words tiling approach was then adopted to encode these feature vectors for bridging the gap between the objects and events. Furthermore, we performed experiments in the context of event classification on the challenging TRECVID MED 2012 dataset, and the results showed that the robust 1000OBK event descriptor outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches. PMID:25147840

Federal laws, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, mandate that people with disabilities have access to the same information that someone without a disability would have. 508 standards cover electronic and information technology (EIT) products.

Nondriving aging adults are at risk of experiencing mobility barriers that inhibit access to important community resources for managing health and wellbeing. This multimethod study explores bus transportation experiences of older adults who live in extended stay hotels and use faith-based organizations to access resources. Interviews from 17 nondriving older adults were analyzed for perspectives about using faith-based organizations and residents' experiences navigating to faith-based organizations through available bus transportation in their communities. Residents described both favorable and unfavorable experiences when reaching out for help from faith-based organizations. Although they report reliance on faith-based organizations for a variety of resources, residents were challenged by an ineffective bus system that interfered with resource accessibility. Suggestions for improving bus transit systems and providing alternative, aging-friendly transportation options are discussed.

Accesscontrol is a key technology in providing security in the Internet of Things (IoT). The mainstream security approach proposed for the sensing layer of the IoT concentrates only on authentication while ignoring the more general models. Unreliable communications and resource constraints make the traditional accesscontrol techniques barely meet the requirements of the sensing layer of the IoT. In this paper, we propose a model that combines space and time with reputation to controlaccess to the information within the sensing layer of the IoT. This model is called spatiotemporal accesscontrolbased on reputation (STRAC). STRAC uses a lattice-based approach to decrease the size of policy bases. To solve the problem caused by unreliable communications, we propose both nondeterministic authorizations and stochastic authorizations. To more precisely manage the reputation of nodes, we propose two new mechanisms to update the reputation of nodes. These new approaches are the authority-based update mechanism (AUM) and the election-based update mechanism (EUM). We show how the model checker UPPAAL can be used to analyze the spatiotemporal accesscontrol model of an application. Finally, we also implement a prototype system to demonstrate the efficiency of our model.

Accesscontrol is a key technology in providing security in the Internet of Things (IoT). The mainstream security approach proposed for the sensing layer of the IoT concentrates only on authentication while ignoring the more general models. Unreliable communications and resource constraints make the traditional accesscontrol techniques barely meet the requirements of the sensing layer of the IoT. In this paper, we propose a model that combines space and time with reputation to controlaccess to the information within the sensing layer of the IoT. This model is called spatiotemporal accesscontrolbased on reputation (STRAC). STRAC uses a lattice-based approach to decrease the size of policy bases. To solve the problem caused by unreliable communications, we propose both nondeterministic authorizations and stochastic authorizations. To more precisely manage the reputation of nodes, we propose two new mechanisms to update the reputation of nodes. These new approaches are the authority-based update mechanism (AUM) and the election-based update mechanism (EUM). We show how the model checker UPPAAL can be used to analyze the spatiotemporal accesscontrol model of an application. Finally, we also implement a prototype system to demonstrate the efficiency of our model. PMID:25177731

Despite the expansion of health services and community-based interventions in Ethiopia, limited evidence exists about the distribution of and access to health facilities and their relationship with the performance of tuberculosis (TB) control programmes. We aim to assess the geographical distribution of and physical accessibility to TB control services and their relationship with TB case notification rates (CNRs) and treatment outcome in the Sidama Zone, southern Ethiopia. We carried out an ecological study to assess physical accessibility to TB control facilities and the association of physical accessibility with TB CNRs and treatment outcome. We collected smear-positive pulmonary TB (PTB) cases treated during 2003-2012 from unit TB registers and TB service data such as availability of basic supplies for TB control and geographic locations of health services. We used ArcGIS 10.2 to measure the distance from each enumeration location to the nearest TB control facilities. A linear regression analysis was employed to assess factors associated with TB CNRs and treatment outcome. Over a decade the health service coverage (the health facility-to-population ratio) increased by 36% and the accessibility to TB control facilities also improved. Thus, the mean distance from TB control services was 7.6 km in 2003 (ranging from 1.8 to 25.5 km) between kebeles (the smallest administrative units) and had decreased to 3.2 km in 2012 (ranging from 1.5 to 12.4 km). In multivariate linear regression, as distance from TB diagnostic facilities (b-estimate=-0.25, p<0.001) and altitude (b-estimate=-0.31, p<0.001) increased, the CNRs of TB decreased, whereas a higher population density was associated with increased TB CNRs. Similarly, distance to TB control facilities (b-estimate=-0.27, p<0.001) and altitude (b-estimate=-0.30, p<0.001) were inversely associated with treatment success (proportion of treatment completed or cured cases). Accessibility to TB control services improved despite

Background Despite the expansion of health services and community-based interventions in Ethiopia, limited evidence exists about the distribution of and access to health facilities and their relationship with the performance of tuberculosis (TB) control programmes. We aim to assess the geographical distribution of and physical accessibility to TB control services and their relationship with TB case notification rates (CNRs) and treatment outcome in the Sidama Zone, southern Ethiopia. Design We carried out an ecological study to assess physical accessibility to TB control facilities and the association of physical accessibility with TB CNRs and treatment outcome. We collected smear-positive pulmonary TB (PTB) cases treated during 2003–2012 from unit TB registers and TB service data such as availability of basic supplies for TB control and geographic locations of health services. We used ArcGIS 10.2 to measure the distance from each enumeration location to the nearest TB control facilities. A linear regression analysis was employed to assess factors associated with TB CNRs and treatment outcome. Results Over a decade the health service coverage (the health facility–to-population ratio) increased by 36% and the accessibility to TB control facilities also improved. Thus, the mean distance from TB control services was 7.6 km in 2003 (ranging from 1.8 to 25.5 km) between kebeles (the smallest administrative units) and had decreased to 3.2 km in 2012 (ranging from 1.5 to 12.4 km). In multivariate linear regression, as distance from TB diagnostic facilities (b-estimate=−0.25, p<0.001) and altitude (b-estimate=−0.31, p<0.001) increased, the CNRs of TB decreased, whereas a higher population density was associated with increased TB CNRs. Similarly, distance to TB control facilities (b-estimate=−0.27, p<0.001) and altitude (b-estimate=−0.30, p<0.001) were inversely associated with treatment success (proportion of treatment completed or cured cases). Conclusions

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have recently attracted much interest in the research community because of their wide range of applications. An emerging application for WSNs involves their use in healthcare where they are generally termed Wireless Medical Sensor Networks (WMSNs). In a hospital, outfitting every patient with tiny, wearable, wireless vital sign sensors would allow doctors, nurses and other caregivers to continuously monitor the state of their patients. In such a scenario, patients are expected to be treated in reasonable time, so, an accesscontrol model is needed which will provide both real-time access to comprehensive medical records and detect unauthorised access to sensitive data. In emergency situations, a doctor or nurse needs to access data immediately. The loss in data availability can result in further decline in the patient's condition or can even lead to death. Therefore, the availability of data is more important than any security concern in emergency situations. To address that research issue for medical data in WSNs, we propose the Break-The-Glass AccessControl (BTG-AC) model that is a modified and redesigned version of the Break-The-Glass Role-BasedAccessControl (BTG-RBAC) model to address data availability issue and to detect the security policy violations from both authorised and unauthorised users. Several changes within the accesscontrol engine are made in BTG-RBAC in order to make the new BTG-AC to apply and fit in WSNs. This paper presents the detailed design and development of the BTG-AC model based on a healthcare scenario. The evaluation results show that the concepts of BTG, prevention and detection mechanism, and obligation provide more flexible access than other current accesscontrol models in WSNs. Additionally, we compare the BTG-AC model with an adaptive accesscontrol model (A2C) which has similar properties, for further evaluation. Alongside with the comparison, the advantages and disadvantages of BTGAC over

This study is showing the advantage of mobile agents to conquer heterogeneous system environments and contribute to a virtual integrated sharing system. Mobile agents will collect medical information from each medical institution as a method to achieve the medical purpose of data sharing. Besides, this research also provides an accesscontrol and key management mechanism by adopting Public key cryptography and Lagrange interpolation. The safety analysis of the system is based on a network attacker's perspective. The achievement of this study tries to improve the medical quality, prevent wasting medical resources and make medical resources access to appropriate configuration.

This study explored the potential effects of communicative tasks developed using a reformulation of a task-based language teaching called Automatization in Communicative Contexts of Essential Speech Sequences (ACCESS) that includes automatization of language elements as one of its goals on learner attention to form in task-based interaction. The…

A prototype of the COROT ground-based archive and access system is presented here. The system has been developed at LAEFF and it is based on the experience gained at Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental (LAEFF) with the INES (IUE Newly Extracted System) Archive.

Academic researchers who manage experimental watersheds, observatories, and research sites need the ability to effectively collect, manage, and publish hydrologic data. This often requires the ability to control and document access to the data. One current mechanism for publishing data from experimental sites uses the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System (HIS). The CUAHSI HIS Project has developed a software stack called HydroServer for publishing hydrologic data. HydroServer relies on a standard relational database schema for storing hydrologic observations, called the Observations Data Model (ODM), a standard set of web services for publishing observations stored in an ODM database, called WaterOneFlow, and a standard XML schema for exchanging hydrologic observations data, called Water Markup Language (WaterML). These standards make is possible for disparate investigators to publish their data as web services within a federated network of HydroServers. Once a HydroServer is operational, all Internet users can access all of the data on the server, with no requirement for users to identify themselves, or restriction on what can be accessed. There are a number of situations where data producers want to take advantage of the organization and functionality that ODM and the HydroServer software stack provides, but without providing unrestricted and unlogged access to all of the data that they are putting on their server. These include the desire of academic data collectors to: 1) control who can access/download data; 2) publish research results based on data before the data are released to the general public; 3) keep track of who is downloading and using their data to evaluate and document its impact on the community; 4) have and use a data use/access agreement and ensure that they get credit and appropriate citation for the data that they publish; 5) expose the best or highest quality data

Authorization systems today are increasingly complex. They span domains of administration, rely on many different authentication sources, and manage permissions that can be as complex as the system itself. Worse still, while there are many standards that define authentication mechanisms, the standards that address authorization are less well defined and tend to work only within homogeneous systems. This paper presents XACML, a standard accesscontrol language, as one component of a distributed and inter-operable authorization framework. Several emerging systems which incorporate XACML are discussed. These discussions illustrate how authorization can be deployed in distributed, decentralized systems. Finally, some new and future topics are presented to show where this work is heading and how it will help connect the general components of an authorization system.

Advancements in information and communication technologies have allowed the development of new approaches to the management and use of healthcare resources. Nowadays it is possible to address complex issues such as meaningful access to distributed data or communication and understanding among heterogeneous systems. As a consequence, the discussion focuses on the administration of the whole set of resources providing knowledge about a single subject of care (SoC). New trends make the SoC administrator and responsible for all these elements (related to his/her demographic data, health, well-being, social conditions, etc.) and s/he is granted the ability of controllingaccess to them by third parties. The subject of care exchanges his/her passive role without any decision capacity for an active one allowing to control who accesses what. We study the necessary accesscontrol infrastructure to support this approach and develop mechanisms based on semantic tools to assist the subject of care with the specification of accesscontrol policies. This infrastructure is a building block of a wider scenario, the Person-Oriented Virtual Organization (POVO), aiming at integrating all the resources related to each citizen's health-related data. The POVO covers the wide range and heterogeneity of available healthcare resources (e.g., information sources, monitoring devices, or software simulation tools) and grants each SoC the accesscontrol to them. Several methodological issues are crucial for the design of the targeted infrastructure. The distributed system concept and focus are reviewed from the service oriented architecture (SOA) perspective. The main frameworks for the formalization of distributed system architectures (Reference Model-Open Distributed Processing, RM-ODP; and Model Driven Architecture, MDA) are introduced, as well as how the use of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) is standardized. The specification of accesscontrol policies and decision making mechanisms

Although Web-based treatments have significant potential to assess and treat difficult-to-reach populations, such as trauma-exposed adolescents, the extent that such treatments are accessed and used is unclear. The present study evaluated the proportion of adolescents who accessed and completed a Web-based treatment for postdisaster mental health symptoms. Correlates of access and completion were examined. A sample of 2,000 adolescents living in tornado-affected communities was assessed via structured telephone interview and invited to a Web-based treatment. The modular treatment addressed symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and alcohol and tobacco use. Participants were randomized to experimental or control conditions after accessing the site. Overall access for the intervention was 35.8%. Module completion for those who accessed ranged from 52.8% to 85.6%. Adolescents with parents who used the Internet to obtain health-related information were more likely to access the treatment. Adolescent males were less likely to access the treatment. Future work is needed to identify strategies to further increase the reach of Web-based treatments to provide clinical services in a postdisaster context. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Although web-based treatments have significant potential to assess and treat difficult to reach populations, such as trauma-exposed adolescents, the extent that such treatments are accessed and used is unclear. The present study evaluated the proportion of adolescents who accessed and completed a web-based treatment for post-disaster mental health symptoms. Correlates of access and completion were examined. A sample of 2,000 adolescents living in tornado-affected communities was assessed via structured telephone interview and invited to a web-based treatment. The modular treatment addressed symptoms of PTSD, depression, and alcohol and tobacco use. Participants were randomized to experimental or control conditions after accessing the site. Overall access for the intervention was 35.8%. Module completion for those who accessed ranged from 52.8% to 85.6%. Adolescents with parents who used the Internet to obtain health-related information were more likely to access the treatment. Adolescent males were less likely to access the treatment. Future work is needed to identify strategies to further increase the reach of web-based treatments to provide clinical services in a post-disaster context. PMID:25622071

The applications of group computing and communication motivate the requirement to provide group accesscontrol in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The operation in MANETs' groups performs a decentralized manner and accommodated membership dynamically. Moreover, due to lack of centralized control, MANETs' groups are inherently insecure and vulnerable to attacks from both within and outside the groups. Such features make accesscontrol more challenging in MANETs. Recently, several researchers have proposed group accesscontrol mechanisms in MANETs based on a variety of threshold signatures. However, these mechanisms cannot actually satisfy MANETs' dynamic environments. This is because the threshold-based mechanisms cannot be achieved when the number of members is not up to the threshold value. Hence, by combining the efficient elliptic curve cryptosystem, self-certified public key cryptosystem and secure filter technique, we construct dynamic key management schemes based on hierarchical clustering for securing group accesscontrol in MANETs. Specifically, the proposed schemes can constantly accomplish secure group accesscontrol only by renewing the secure filters of few cluster heads, when a cluster head joins or leaves a cross-cluster. In such a new way, we can find that the proposed group accesscontrol scheme can be very effective for securing practical applications in MANETs.

When sharing and storing healthcare data in a cloud environment, accesscontrol is a central issue for preserving data privacy as a patient's personal health data may be accessed without permission from many stakeholders. Specifically, dynamic authorization for the access of data is required because personal health data is stored in cloud storage via wearable devices. Therefore, we propose a dynamic accesscontrol model for preserving the privacy of personal healthcare data in a cloud environment. The proposed model considers context information for dynamic access. According to the proposed model, accesscontrol can be dynamically determined by changing the context information; this means that even for a subject with the same role in the cloud, access permission is defined differently depending on the context information and access condition. Furthermore, we experiment the ability of the proposed model to provide correct responses by representing a dynamic access decision with real-life personalized healthcare system scenarios.

... controlsaccess to national security-classified information? (a) The declassification of and public access... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What controlsaccess to national security-classified information? 1256.70 Section 1256.70 Parks, Forests, and Public Property...

... controlsaccess to national security-classified information? (a) The declassification of and public access... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2013-07-01 2012-07-01 true What controlsaccess to national security-classified information? 1256.70 Section 1256.70 Parks, Forests, and Public Property...

Percutaneous structural heart therapies, such as mitral value repair, require site-specific transseptal access (TSA). This can be challenging for interventional cardiologists. We describe a TSA catheter (TSAC) that utilises suction for enhanced control and puncture accuracy. Here, we aim to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the device. Ex vivo interatrial septum preparations were dissected from swine (n=8) and diseased human hearts (n=6) to quantify TSAC suction and needle puncture force. TSAC suction was 6.5-fold greater than the opposing needle puncture force, and thus provides sufficient stabilisation for punctures. The safety and efficacy of TSAC was evaluated in a chronic mitral regurgitation swine model (n=10) and compared to a conventional TSA device. MR was induced by disrupting one to three mitral chordae tendineae, and the progression of heart disease was followed for three weeks. During device testing, procedure time and fluoroscopy exposure were not statistically different between devices. TSAC reduced septal displacement from 8.7±0.30 mm to 3.60±0.19 mm (p<0.05) and improved puncture accuracy 1.75-fold. TSAC provides controlled TSA and improves puncture accuracy, while maintaining procedure time and workflow. These findings provide a strong rationale for a first-in-man study to demonstrate the clinical utility of the device.

In this paper, compressed sensing (CS) theory is utilized in a medium-accesscontrol (MAC) scheme for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We propose a new, cross-layer compressed sensing medium-accesscontrol (CL CS-MAC) scheme, combining the physical layer and data link layer, where the wireless transmission in physical layer is considered as a compress process of requested packets in a data link layer according to compressed sensing (CS) theory. We first introduced using compressive complex requests to identify the exact active sensor nodes, which makes the scheme more efficient. Moreover, because the reconstruction process is executed in a complex field of a physical layer, where no bit and frame synchronizations are needed, the asynchronous and random requests scheme can be implemented without synchronization payload. We set up a testbed based on software-defined radio (SDR) to implement the proposed CL CS-MAC scheme practically and to demonstrate the validation. For large-scale WSNs, the simulation results show that the proposed CL CS-MAC scheme provides higher throughput and robustness than the carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) and compressed sensing medium-accesscontrol (CS-MAC) schemes.

Provides an overview of problems related to wireless mobility, specifically the use of cellular telephones to access remote information stores, such as the Internet, and computing services. Presents a new software architecture and discusses a new paradigm for designing mobile-distributed applications based on a mediator, a distributed intelligent…

Describes the Web-based technologies employed by the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in implementing access to local information resources. Discusses Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technologies and the associated local database structure and format, as well as the general…

Learning at Work is a Scottish program attempting to widen access to higher education across socioeconomic groups through work-based learning. Factors limiting participation include motivation, employer perceptions of the value of higher education, lack of a learning culture, and economic feasibility. (SK)

Based on interference temperature model, the problem of efficient secondary spectrum sharing is formulated as a power optimization problem with some constraints at physical layer. These constraints and optimization objective limit a feasible power vector set which leads to the need of accesscontrol besides power control. In this paper, we consider the decentralized cognitive radio network scenario where short-term data service is required, and the problem of distributed joint power and accesscontrol is studied to maximize the total secondary system throughput, subject to Quality of Service (QoS) constraints from individual secondary users and interference temperature limit (ITL) from primary system. Firstly, a pricing-based game model was used to solve distributed power allocation optimization problem in both high and low signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) scenarios. Secondly, when not all the secondary links can be supported with their QoS requirement and ITL, a distributed joint power and accesscontrol algorithm was introduced to find the allowable links which results in maximum network throughput with all the constraints satisfied, and the convergence performance is tested by simulations.

The feasibility of using model basedcontrol (MBC) for robotic manipulators was investigated. A double inverted pendulum system was constructed as the experimental system for a general study of dynamically stable manipulation. The original interest in dynamically stable systems was driven by the objective of high vertical reach (balancing), and the planning of inertially favorable trajectories for force and payload demands. The model-basedcontrol approach is described and the results of experimental tests are summarized. Results directly demonstrate that MBC can provide stable control at all speeds of operation and support operations requiring dynamic stability such as balancing. The application of MBC to systems with flexible links is also discussed.

The use of spread spectrum signaling, motivated primarily by its antijamming capabilities in military applications, leads naturally to the use of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) techniques that permit the successful simultaneous transmission by a number of users over a wideband channel. In this paper we address some of the major issues that are associated with the design of multiple access protocols for spread spectrum networks. We then propose, analyze, and evaluate a distributed reservation-based multiple access protocol that does in fact exploit CDMA properties. Especially significant is the fact that no acknowledgment or feedback information from the destination is required (thus facilitating communication with a radio-silent mode), nor is any form of coordination among the users necessary.

Drug conventions serve as the cornerstone for domestic drug laws and impose a dual obligation upon states to prevent the misuse of controlled substances while ensuring their adequate availability for medical and scientific purposes. Despite the mandate that these obligations be enforced equally, the dominant paradigm enshrined in the drug conventions is an enforcement-heavy criminal justice response to controlled substances that prohibits and penalizes their misuse. Prioritizing restrictive control is to the detriment of ensuring adequate availability of and access to controlled medicines, thereby violating the rights of people who need them. This paper argues that the drug conventions' prioritization of criminal justice measures-including efforts to prevent non-medical use of controlled substances-undermines access to medicines and infringes upon the right to health and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress. While the effects of criminalization under drug policy limit the right to health in multiple ways, we draw on research and documented examples to highlight the impact of drug control and criminalization on access to medicines. The prioritization and protection of human rights-specifically the right to health and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress-are critical to rebalancing drug policy.

Abstract Drug conventions serve as the cornerstone for domestic drug laws and impose a dual obligation upon states to prevent the misuse of controlled substances while ensuring their adequate availability for medical and scientific purposes. Despite the mandate that these obligations be enforced equally, the dominant paradigm enshrined in the drug conventions is an enforcement-heavy criminal justice response to controlled substances that prohibits and penalizes their misuse. Prioritizing restrictive control is to the detriment of ensuring adequate availability of and access to controlled medicines, thereby violating the rights of people who need them. This paper argues that the drug conventions’ prioritization of criminal justice measures—including efforts to prevent non-medical use of controlled substances—undermines access to medicines and infringes upon the right to health and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress. While the effects of criminalization under drug policy limit the right to health in multiple ways, we draw on research and documented examples to highlight the impact of drug control and criminalization on access to medicines. The prioritization and protection of human rights—specifically the right to health and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress—are critical to rebalancing drug policy. PMID:28630556

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) operates 86 correctional institutions nationwide. The BOP has grown dramatically, the size of its inmate population growing from just over 41,000 inmates in 1987 to over 100,000 today. The number of BOP staff managing these facilities has grown correspondingly, more than doubling in number in the same ten year period. Technology has paid a major role in keeping up with this growth while maintaining high standards of security in BOP institutions. In an attempt to further enhance security in its institutions, the BOP has recently begun pilot testing an accesscontrol and entry system (ACES). ACES is intended to provide an automated record of very entry and exit to a correctional institution. ACES takes advantage of several methods of identifying an individual (inmate, staff or visitor) to assure that the individual exiting the institution is the same as the individual entering. The pilot test has raised a number of questions regarding the implementation of a technologically sophisticated system in a correctional institution. Questions of training, support, 'ownership,' cost effectiveness, and future potential all influence the deployment of this system. Preliminary results indicate that an adequate training and support system is essential to the performance of any sophisticated system and that other organizational issues need to be addressed before the decision to implement is made.

Describes a new software program called "Everywhere Access" that provides remote access to libraries' networked personal computers and that is suitable for use with the Internet. Highlights include installation; operation; security; standards issues; documentation and technical support; and potential uses and applications. (LRW)

With the rapid development of big data and Internet of things (IOT), the number of networking devices and data volume are increasing dramatically. Fog computing, which extends cloud computing to the edge of the network can effectively solve the bottleneck problems of data transmission and data storage. However, security and privacy challenges are also arising in the fog-cloud computing environment. Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) can be adopted to realize data accesscontrol in fog-cloud computing systems. In this paper, we propose a verifiable outsourced multi-authority accesscontrol scheme, named VO-MAACS. In our construction, most encryption and decryption computations are outsourced to fog devices and the computation results can be verified by using our verification method. Meanwhile, to address the revocation issue, we design an efficient user and attribute revocation method for it. Finally, analysis and simulation results show that our scheme is both secure and highly efficient.

With the popularity of Internet technology, web services are becoming the most promising paradigm for distributed computing. This increased use of web services has meant that more and more personal information of consumers is being shared with web service providers, leading to the need to guarantee the privacy of consumers. This paper proposes a role-based privacy accesscontrol framework for Web services collaboration, it utilizes roles to specify the privacy privileges of services, and considers the impact on the reputation degree of the historic experience of services in playing roles. Comparing to the traditional privacy accesscontrol approaches, this framework can make the fine-grained authorization decision, thus efficiently protecting consumers' privacy.

With the rapid development of big data and Internet of things (IOT), the number of networking devices and data volume are increasing dramatically. Fog computing, which extends cloud computing to the edge of the network can effectively solve the bottleneck problems of data transmission and data storage. However, security and privacy challenges are also arising in the fog-cloud computing environment. Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) can be adopted to realize data accesscontrol in fog-cloud computing systems. In this paper, we propose a verifiable outsourced multi-authority accesscontrol scheme, named VO-MAACS. In our construction, most encryption and decryption computations are outsourced to fog devices and the computation results can be verified by using our verification method. Meanwhile, to address the revocation issue, we design an efficient user and attribute revocation method for it. Finally, analysis and simulation results show that our scheme is both secure and highly efficient. PMID:28737733

Public awareness of the potential for violation of personal privacy in clinical information systems is increasing. Much of this increase can be attributed to the popularity and publicity of the World Wide Web. Nightly news reports of intruder break-ins and flaws in Internet software security have stimulated public interest in the security of clinical information systems available over the web. As part of the development of systems designed to provide clinical narratives to physicians over the Internet, we are exploring designs that provide additional protection and security to these systems. Specifically, we are developing and testing automated accesscontrol measures based on provider-patient relationships for controllingaccess to personally identifiable patient information. PMID:9357586

Within a coalition environment, ad hoc Communities of Interest (CoI's) come together, perhaps for only a short time, with different sensors, sensor platforms, data fusion elements, and networks to conduct a task (or set of tasks) with different coalition members taking different roles. In such a coalition, each organization will have its own inherent restrictions on how it will interact with the others. These are usually stated as a set of policies, including security and privacy policies. The capability that we want to enable for a coalition operation is to provide access to information from any coalition partner in conformance with the policies of all. One of the challenges in supporting such ad-hoc coalition operations is that of providing efficient access to distributed sources of data, where the applications requiring the data do not have knowledge of the location of the data within the network. To address this challenge the International Technology Alliance (ITA) program has been developing the concept of a Dynamic Distributed Federated Database (DDFD), also know as a Gaian Database. This type of database provides a means for accessing data across a network of distributed heterogeneous data sources where access to the information is controlled by a mixture of local and global policies. We describe how a network of disparate ISR elements can be expressed as a DDFD and how this approach enables sensor and other information sources to be discovered autonomously or semi-autonomously and/or combined, fused formally defined local and global policies.

With simultaneous multi-user transmissions, spatial division multiple access (SDMA) provides substantial throughput gain over the single user transmission. However, its implementation in WLANs with contention-based IEEE 802.11 MAC remains challenging. Problems such as coordinating and synchronizing the multiple users need to be solved in a distributed way. In this paper, we propose a distributed MAC protocol for WLANs with SDMA support. A dual-mode CTS responding mechanism is designed to accomplish the channel estimation and user synchronization required for SDMA. We analytically study the throughput performance of the proposed MAC, and dynamic parameter adjustment is designed to enhance the protocol efficiency. In addition, the proposed MAC protocol does not rely on specific physical layer realizations, and can work on legacy IEEE 802.11 equipment with slight software updates. Simulation results show that the proposed MAC outperforms IEEE 802.11 significantly, and that the dynamic parameter adjustment can effectively track the load variation in the network.

To describe our technical modifications of midfacial translocation for access to the nasopharynx, and anterior, central and lateral skull base. Retrospective chart review of a prospective case series. Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Scotland, UK. Along with demographics, other parameters studied were adequacy of exposure, completeness of resection, aesthetic outcome and complications. Our main outcome measures included adequacy of exposure, partial or total resection of tumour, aesthetic outcome, and complications related to surgical technique. A total of 48 patients underwent modified midfacial translocation at our institution for nasopharyngeal, parapharyngeal, and anterior, central and lateral skull base tumours. In all cases, the exposure was deemed to be adequate. Two patients developed wound dehiscence in previously irradiated fields. Other incisions healed very well and the aesthetic outcome was regarded as satisfactory. Modified midfacial translocation is based on the principle of temporary craniofacial disassembly for access to the skull base. Our modifications offer adequate access and a better aesthetic outcome. All incisions are placed through the aesthetic sub units of the nose with preservation of the lip. Preservation of the bony piriform aperture prevents airway compromise.

A highly efficient Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) controller supporting variable-length burst access and batch process for discrete reads is proposed in this paper. Based on the Principle of Locality, command First In First Out (FIFO) and address range detector are designed within this controller to accelerate its responses to discrete read requests, which dramatically improves the average Effective Bus Utilization Ratio (EBUR) of SDRAM. Our controller is finally verified by driving the Micron 256-Mb SDRAM MT48LC16M16A2. Successful simulation and verification results show that our controller exhibits much higher EBUR than do most existing designs in case of discrete reads.

Most telecommunication operators are currently deciding on how to respond to customers' needs stimulated by the synergy between compression coding of multimedia and the emergence of broadband digital networks. This paper describes a range of broadband access architectures under consideration in the full services access network initiative. All architectures have a common requirement for a broadband ATM PON. A common broadband PON applicable to many operators increases the world-wide market for the product. With greater production volumes manufacturers' costs reduce because of the experience curve effect making broadband access systems economic.

... COMMISSION 17 CFR Part 240 RIN 3235-AK53 Risk Management Controls for Brokers or Dealers With Market Access... sponsored or direct market access to customers or other persons, and broker-dealer operators of an ATS that...-dealer that could arise as a result of market access, and ensure compliance with all regulatory...

... 10 Energy 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Control of access to very high radiation areas. 20.1602 Section 20.1602 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STANDARDS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION Control of Exposure From External Sources in Restricted Areas § 20.1602 Control of access to very high radiation areas...

... 10 Energy 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Control of access to very high radiation areas. 20.1602 Section 20.1602 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STANDARDS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION Control of Exposure From External Sources in Restricted Areas § 20.1602 Control of access to very high radiation areas...

... 10 Energy 1 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Control of access to very high radiation areas. 20.1602 Section 20.1602 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STANDARDS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION Control of Exposure From External Sources in Restricted Areas § 20.1602 Control of access to very high radiation areas...

... 10 Energy 1 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Control of access to very high radiation areas. 20.1602 Section 20.1602 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STANDARDS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION Control of Exposure From External Sources in Restricted Areas § 20.1602 Control of access to very high radiation areas...

... 10 Energy 1 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Control of access to very high radiation areas. 20.1602 Section 20.1602 Energy NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION STANDARDS FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION Control of Exposure From External Sources in Restricted Areas § 20.1602 Control of access to very high radiation areas...

This commentary summarizes the experience and learnings from a site visit in May 2008 to a drop-in centre for vulnerable women in downtown Cairo run by El-Shehab Institution for Comprehensive Development, which provides street outreach for the prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI). The Centre successfully provides services and support for women, many of who are displaced or refugees and are from the most marginalized areas in Cairo. Through a rights-based approach to the work, the Centre helps people living in the slums fight and win the right to access clean water, sewerage and electrical power in their communities. An individual-based approach to human rights is also used. In the last year El-Shehab have helped 67 women go to court and win their marriage rights from husbands who have abandoned them. Their approach is an example of a successful way to achieve access to basic health determinants.

We describe the first DNA-based storage architecture that enables random access to data blocks and rewriting of information stored at arbitrary locations within the blocks. The newly developed architecture overcomes drawbacks of existing read-only methods that require decoding the whole file in order to read one data fragment. Our system is based on new constrained coding techniques and accompanying DNA editing methods that ensure data reliability, specificity and sensitivity of access, and at the same time provide exceptionally high data storage capacity. As a proof of concept, we encoded parts of the Wikipedia pages of six universities in the USA, and selected and edited parts of the text written in DNA corresponding to three of these schools. The results suggest that DNA is a versatile media suitable for both ultrahigh density archival and rewritable storage applications.

We describe the first DNA-based storage architecture that enables random access to data blocks and rewriting of information stored at arbitrary locations within the blocks. The newly developed architecture overcomes drawbacks of existing read-only methods that require decoding the whole file in order to read one data fragment. Our system is based on new constrained coding techniques and accompanying DNA editing methods that ensure data reliability, specificity and sensitivity of access, and at the same time provide exceptionally high data storage capacity. As a proof of concept, we encoded parts of the Wikipedia pages of six universities in the USA, and selected and edited parts of the text written in DNA corresponding to three of these schools. The results suggest that DNA is a versatile media suitable for both ultrahigh density archival and rewritable storage applications.

Cognitive radio sensor networks are one of the kinds of application where cognitive techniques can be adopted and have many potential applications, challenges and future research trends. According to the research surveys, dynamic spectrum access is an important and necessary technology for future cognitive sensor networks. Traditional methods of dynamic spectrum access are based on spectrum holes and they have some drawbacks, such as low accessibility and high interruptibility, which negatively affect the transmission performance of the sensor networks. To address this problem, in this paper a new initialization mechanism is proposed to establish a communication link and set up a sensor network without adopting spectrum holes to convey control information. Specifically, firstly a transmission channel model for analyzing the maximum accessible capacity for three different polices in a fading environment is discussed. Secondly, a hybrid spectrum access algorithm based on a reinforcement learning model is proposed for the power allocation problem of both the transmission channel and the control channel. Finally, extensive simulations have been conducted and simulation results show that this new algorithm provides a significant improvement in terms of the tradeoff between the control channel reliability and the efficiency of the transmission channel. PMID:27754316

Cognitive radio sensor networks are one of the kinds of application where cognitive techniques can be adopted and have many potential applications, challenges and future research trends. According to the research surveys, dynamic spectrum access is an important and necessary technology for future cognitive sensor networks. Traditional methods of dynamic spectrum access are based on spectrum holes and they have some drawbacks, such as low accessibility and high interruptibility, which negatively affect the transmission performance of the sensor networks. To address this problem, in this paper a new initialization mechanism is proposed to establish a communication link and set up a sensor network without adopting spectrum holes to convey control information. Specifically, firstly a transmission channel model for analyzing the maximum accessible capacity for three different polices in a fading environment is discussed. Secondly, a hybrid spectrum access algorithm based on a reinforcement learning model is proposed for the power allocation problem of both the transmission channel and the control channel. Finally, extensive simulations have been conducted and simulation results show that this new algorithm provides a significant improvement in terms of the tradeoff between the control channel reliability and the efficiency of the transmission channel.

One strategy employed by healthcare organizations to increase their market presence is the construction of new facilities. Accessing capital to fund such construction, however, has become more of a challenge. One relatively untapped source of building capital is real-estate-based financing. Nonrecourse mortgages, turnkey net leases, and synthetic leases can provide several advantages to healthcare organizations seeking capital, assuming issues related to building ownership, debt and balance sheet effects, and tax-exempt status have been thoroughly explored first.

The adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile applications in the healthcare may transform the healthcare industry by offering better disease tracking and management as well as patient empowerment. Unfortunately, almost all of these new systems set up their own ecosystem and to be really valuable for the care process they need to be integrated or federated with user managed accesscontrol services based on international standards and profiles to enable interoperability. Thus, this work presents the results of an evaluation of available specifications for federated authorization, based on a set of basic requirements.

The paper describes a formalized control model of access to information and technological resources of automated control systems at water supply enterprises. The given model considers the availability of various communication links with information systems and technological equipment. There are also studied control methods of access to information and technological resources of automated control systems at water supply enterprises. On the basis of the formalized control model and appropriate methods there was developed a software-hardware complex for rapid access to information and technological resources of automated control systems, which contains an administrator’s automated workplace and ultimate users.

Transcaval access has been used successfully for over 200 transcatheter aortic valve replacements, large-bore percutaneous left ventricular assist devices, and thoracic endovascular aortic aneurysm repairs. This review teaches how to plan transcaval access and closure based on computed tomography. The main planning goals are to: 1) identify calcium-free crossing targets in the abdominal aorta along with optimal fluoroscopic projection angles and level with respect to lumbar vertebrae; 2) identify obstacles such as interposed bowel or pedunculated aortic atheroma; 3) plan covered stent bailout; and 4) identify jeopardized vascular branches such as renal arteries that might be obstructed by bailout covered stents if employed. The aorta and inferior vena cava are segmented (sculpted) using an image reconstruction workstation and crossing targets are highlighted. Important measurements such as aortic lumen diameter and target distance from renal arteries, aortoiliac bifurcation, and right femoral vein puncture site are reported to assist the operator. The proposed classification for transcaval feasibility has been revised, making some previously unfavorable candidates now feasible or favorable based on procedural success to date. Transcaval access allows percutaneous introduction of large devices into the aorta despite small or diseased iliofemoral arteries. By following these simplified procedures, both operators and imaging specialists can easily prepare comprehensive treatment plans. PMID:28057275

We submitted a progress report covering the first year of work on this grant on October 10, 2000. Though originally envisioned as a three-year grant, this work was not, in fact, funded after the first year. Thus, we hereby submit a report that is basically the same as the report submitted on October 10, 2000. In the first year of this project we prepared the groundwork for moving to automatic discovery, secure access to data servers, applications and controls, and migration to object approaches to data storage. We built and installed the secure Apache web server. It can be accessed at https://fusion.txcorp.com. We are able to configure this web server so that access is limited to a set of persons based on their Public Key Infrastructure certificates. Secondly, we developed signed applets for the National Transport Code Collaboration Demonstration Code, as are needed for secure access to the data and physics servers being developed by that project. Signed applets assure the user that the applet is the official version, and so it will not corrupt their machine. The also assure the server that the commands that come over are from a valid applet. In addition we began working with the CORBA naming daemon for configuring it to provide automatic discovery of data and physics servers. Finally, we spent significant time working on the NTCC project to ensure that its components were robust and useful, so that the remainder of this project would have a valuable tool to implement.

The demand for integrated services local area networks is increasing at a rapid pace with the advent of many new and exciting applications: office and factory automation, distributed computing, and multimedia communications. To support these new applications, it is imperative to integrate traffic with diverse statistical characteristics and differing delay requirements on the same network. An attractive approach for integrating traffic has been adopted in two token passing local area network standards, the IEEE 802.4 token bus standard and FDDI. The idea is to control the transmissions of each station based on a distributed timing algorithm, so as to achieve the following goals: (1) to limit the token cycles so that time-critical traffic can be accommodated, and (2) to allocate pre-specified bandwidths to different stations when the network is overloaded. We have investigated the analysis and design of this protocol. In this paper, we generalize the transmission control algorithm used previously. The major advantages of the generalization over the original protocol are: (1) it provides a much expanded design space, (2) it guarantees convergent behavior, and (3) it gives meaningful insights into the dynamics of the basic control algorithm.

Does free access to journal articles result in greater diffusion of scientific knowledge? Using a randomized controlled trial of open access publishing, involving 36 participating journals in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, we report on the effects of free access on article downloads and citations. Articles placed in the open access condition (n=712) received significantly more downloads and reached a broader audience within the first year, yet were cited no more frequently, nor earlier, than subscription-accesscontrol articles (n=2533) within 3 yr. These results may be explained by social stratification, a process that concentrates scientific authors at a small number of elite research universities with excellent access to the scientific literature. The real beneficiaries of open access publishing may not be the research community but communities of practice that consume, but rarely contribute to, the corpus of literature.

... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Who controlsaccess to medical... Health Safety and Health (general) § 150.604 Who controlsaccess to medical monitoring and exposure records? If medical monitoring is performed or exposure records are maintained by an employer, the...

A description of a simple interface to enable the interconnection of a random access slide projector and a microcomputer is provided, as well as summaries of the role of slide images as a means of implementing graphic communication and the new activity in graphics as an area of information processing. The microcomputer interface is then detailed,…

... unattended spaces that adjoin areas to which passengers and visitors have access; (9) Provide a designated... government personnel present identification credentials for entry; (2) X-ray screening of all unaccompanied... baggage more extensively, for example, x-raying from two or more angles; (ii) Prepare to restrict or...

The charter for adversarial delay is to hinder access to critical resources through the use of physical systems increasing an adversarys task time. The traditional method for characterizing access delay has been a simple model focused on accumulating times required to complete each task with little regard to uncertainty, complexity, or decreased efficiency associated with multiple sequential tasks or stress. The delay associated with any given barrier or path is further discounted to worst-case, and often unrealistic, times based on a high-level adversary, resulting in a highly conservative calculation of total delay. This leads to delay systems that require significant funding and personnel resources in order to defend against the assumed threat, which for many sites and applications becomes cost prohibitive. A new methodology has been developed that considers the uncertainties inherent in the problem to develop a realistic timeline distribution for a given adversary path. This new methodology incorporates advanced Bayesian statistical theory and methodologies, taking into account small sample size, expert judgment, human factors and threat uncertainty. The result is an algorithm that can calculate a probability distribution function of delay times directly related to system risk. Through further analysis, the access delay analyst or end user can use the results in making informed decisions while weighing benefits against risks, ultimately resulting in greater system effectiveness with lower cost.

Open access is one of the important leverages for long-term data preservation for a HEP experiment. To guarantee the usability of data analysis tools beyond the experiment lifetime it is crucial that third party users from the scientific community have access to the data and associated software. The ALICE Collaboration has developed a layer of lightweight components built on top of virtualization technology to hide the complexity and details of the experiment-specific software. Users can perform basic analysis tasks within CernVM, a lightweight generic virtual machine, paired with an ALICE specific contextualization. Once the virtual machine is launched, a graphical user interface is automatically started without any additional configuration. This interface allows downloading the base ALICE analysis software and running a set of ALICE analysis modules. Currently the available tools include fully documented tutorials for ALICE analysis, such as the measurement of strange particle production or the nuclear modification factor in Pb-Pb collisions. The interface can be easily extended to include an arbitrary number of additional analysis modules. We present the current status of the tools used by ALICE through the CERN open access portal, and the plans for future extensions of this system.

We study the multiple access problem for e-Health applications (referred to as secondary users) coexisting with medical devices (referred to as primary or protected users) in a hospital environment. In particular, we focus on transmission scheduling and power control of secondary users in multiple spatial reuse time-division multiple access (STDMA) networks. The objective is to maximize the spectrum utilization of secondary users and minimize their power consumption subject to the electromagnetic interference (EMI) constraints for active and passive medical devices and minimum throughput guarantee for secondary users. The multiple access problem is formulated as a dual objective optimization problem which is shown to be NP-complete. We propose a joint scheduling and power control algorithm based on a greedy approach to solve the problem with much lower computational complexity. To this end, an enhanced greedy algorithm is proposed to improve the performance of the greedy algorithm by finding the optimal sequence of secondary users for scheduling. Using extensive simulations, the tradeoff in performance in terms of spectrum utilization, energy consumption, and computational complexity is evaluated for both the algorithms.

Low power over wireless personal area networks (LoWPAN), in particular wireless sensor networks, represent an emerging technology with high potential to be employed in critical situations like security surveillance, battlefields, smart-grids, and in e-health applications. The support of security services in LoWPAN is considered a challenge. First, this type of networks is usually deployed in unattended environments, making them vulnerable to security attacks. Second, the constraints inherent to LoWPAN, such as scarce resources and limited battery capacity, impose a careful planning on how and where the security services should be deployed. Besides protecting the network from some well-known threats, it is important that security mechanisms be able to withstand attacks that have not been identified before. One way of reaching this goal is to control, at the network access level, which nodes can be attached to the network and to enforce their security compliance. This paper presents a network access security framework that can be used to control the nodes that have access to the network, based on administrative approval, and to enforce security compliance to the authorized nodes.

Low power over wireless personal area networks (LoWPAN), in particular wireless sensor networks, represent an emerging technology with high potential to be employed in critical situations like security surveillance, battlefields, smart-grids, and in e-health applications. The support of security services in LoWPAN is considered a challenge. First, this type of networks is usually deployed in unattended environments, making them vulnerable to security attacks. Second, the constraints inherent to LoWPAN, such as scarce resources and limited battery capacity, impose a careful planning on how and where the security services should be deployed. Besides protecting the network from some well-known threats, it is important that security mechanisms be able to withstand attacks that have not been identified before. One way of reaching this goal is to control, at the network access level, which nodes can be attached to the network and to enforce their security compliance. This paper presents a network access security framework that can be used to control the nodes that have access to the network, based on administrative approval, and to enforce security compliance to the authorized nodes. PMID:23334610

A project was initiated at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant to implement software geometric error compensation within a PC-based machine tool controller from Manufacturing Data Systems, Inc. This project may be the first in which this type of compensation system was implemented in a commercially available machine tool controller totally in software. Previous implementations typically required using an external computer and hardware to interface through the position feedback loop of the controller because direct access to the controller software was not available. The test-bed machine for this project was a 2-axis Excello 921 T-base lathe. A mathematical error model of the lathe was created using homogeneous transformation matrices to relate the positions of the machine's slides to each other and to a world reference system. Equations describing the effects of the geometric errors were derived from the model. A software architecture was developed to support geometric error compensation for machine tools with up to 3 linear axes. Rotary axes were not supported in this implementation, but the developed architecture would not preclude their support in the future. Specific implementations will be dependent upon the configuration of the machine tool. A laser measuring system from Automated Precision, Inc. was used to characterize the lathe's geometric errors as functions of axis position and direction of motion. Multiple data files generated by the laser system were combined into a single Error File that was read at system startup and used by the compensation system to provide real-time position adjustments to the axis servos. A Renishaw Ballbar was used to evaluate the compensation system. Static positioning tests were conducted in an attempt to observe improved positioning accuracy with the compensation system enabled. These tests gave inconsistent results due to the lathe's inability to position the tool repeatably. The development of the architecture and compensation

Eukaryotic genomes are repetitively wrapped into nucleosomes that then regulate access of transcription and DNA repair complexes to DNA. The mechanisms that regulate extrinsic protein interactions within nucleosomes are unresolved. We demonstrate that modulation of the nucleosome unwrapping rate regulates protein binding within nucleosomes. Histone H3 acetyl-lysine 56 [H3(K56ac)] and DNA sequence within the nucleosome entry-exit region additively influence nucleosomal DNA accessibility by increasing the unwrapping rate without impacting rewrapping. These combined epigenetic and genetic factors influence transcription factor (TF) occupancy within the nucleosome by at least one order of magnitude and enhance nucleosome disassembly by the DNA mismatch repair complex, hMSH2–hMSH6. Our results combined with the observation that ∼30% of Saccharomyces cerevisiae TF-binding sites reside in the nucleosome entry–exit region suggest that modulation of nucleosome unwrapping is a mechanism for regulating transcription and DNA repair. PMID:22965129

The ISS finally reached an operational state and exists for local and remote users. Onboard payload systems are managed by the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC). Users access HOSC systems by internet protocols in support of daily operations, preflight simulation, and test. In support of this diverse user community, a modem security architecture has been implemented. The architecture has evolved over time from an isolated but open system to a system which supports local and remote access to the ISS over broad geographic regions. This has been accomplished through the use of an evolved security strategy, PKI, and custom design. Through this paper, descriptions of the migration process and the lessons learned are presented. This will include product decision criteria, rationale, and the use of commodity products in the end architecture. This paper will also stress the need for interoperability of various products and the effects of seemingly insignificant details.

WormBase (), a model organism database for Caenorhabditis elegans and other related nematodes, continues to evolve and expand. Over the past year WormBase has added new data on C.elegans, including data on classical genetics, cell biology and functional genomics; expanded the annotation of closely related nematodes with a new genome browser for Caenorhabditis remanei; and deployed new hardware for stronger performance. Several existing datasets including phenotype descriptions and RNAi experiments have seen a large increase in new content. New datasets such as the C.remanei draft assembly and annotations, the Vancouver Fosmid library and TEC-RED 5′ end sites are now available as well. Access to and searching WormBase has become more dependable and flexible via multiple mirror sites and indexing through Google. PMID:17099234

Identification System SES Senior Executive Service SPOC Service Point of Contact TASM Trusted Agent Security Manager USD (AT&L) Under...the final report by October 31, 2008. 53 Finding D. Oversight of Common Access Card Sponsors DoD CVS Service Points of Contact ( SPOCs ...authorization to approve contractor CACs. Organization of CAC Application Sites Each Service agency has an SPOC who is responsible for coordinating with

This article describes an experimental investigation on the behavior of transmission control protocol in throughput measurements to be used in the verification of the service-level agreement between the Internet service provider and user in terms of line capacity for ultra-broadband access networks typical of fiber-to-the-x architectures. It is experimentally shown different conditions in high bandwidth-delay product links where the estimation of the line capacity based on a single transmission control protocol session results are unreliable. Simple equations reported in this work, and experimentally verified, point out the conditions in terms of packet loss, time delay, and line capacity, that allow consideration of the reliability of the measurement carried out with a single transmission control protocol session test by adopting a suitable measurement time duration.

ALOHA random access protocols are distributed protocols based on transmission probabilities, that is, each node decides upon packet transmissions according to a transmission probability value. In the literature, ALOHA protocols are analysed by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of the queues of the node buffers under a control vector (whose elements are the transmission probabilities assigned to the nodes), given an arrival rate vector (whose elements represent the rates of the packets arriving in the node buffers). The innovation of this work is that, given an arrival rate vector, it computes the optimal control vector by defining and solving a stochastic control problem aimed at maximising the overall transmission efficiency, while keeping a grade of fairness among the nodes. Furthermore, a more general case in which the arrival rate vector changes in time is considered. The increased efficiency of the proposed solution with respect to the standard ALOHA approach is evaluated by means of numerical simulations.

The growth performance of weanling albino rats (Rattus norvegicus) maintained on different accessions (offspring of a variety that was planted/collected at a specific location and time but differing in certain morphologic characteristics) of cooked Colocasia esculenta (cocoyam)-based diets (UFCe1-UFCe7) for 28 days was investigated. Proximate analysis of the formulated diets revealed that UFCe3, UFCe4, UFCe5, UFCe6, and UFCe7 had significantly (Pbased diet (control). All the accession-based diets of C. esculenta had higher ash contents. Similarly, all the accessions of the C. esculenta-based diet had lower crude lipid content, whereas UFCe3-UFCe7 had significantly lower protein content. Although the crude fiber content was significantly higher in UFCe2, UFCe4, and UFCe5, only UFCe3 had significantly higher carbohydrate content among all the accessions of C. esculenta-based diets. UFCe1, UFCe2, UFCe4, UFCe5, and UFCe6 increased the average weekly water intake, feed consumption, total body weight, liver-body weight ratio, and kidney-body weight ratio of the animals; UFCe3 and UFCe7 decreased these measures. Overall, UFCe1, UFCe2, UFCe4, UFCe5, and UFCe6 are recommended as diets with promise to enhance growth performance in the animals.

To assess different network and security technologies for remote access to a web-based image distribution system of a hospital intranet. Following preparatory testing, the time-to-display (TTD) was measured for three image types (CR, CT, MR). The evaluation included two remote access technologies consisting of direct ISDN-Dial-Up or VPN connection (Virtual Private Network), with three different connection speeds of 64, 128 (ISDN) and 768 Kbit/s (ADSL-Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), as well as with lossless and lossy compression. Depending on the image type, the TTD with lossless compression for 64 Kbit/s varied from 1 : 00 to 2 : 40 minutes, for 128 Kbit/s from 0 : 35 to 1 : 15 minutes and for ADSL from 0 : 15 to 0 : 45 minutes. The ISDN-Dial-Up connection was superior to VPN technology at 64 Kbit/s but did not allow higher connection speeds. Lossy compression reduced the TTD by half for all measurements. VPN technology is preferable to direct Dial-Up connections since it offers higher connection speeds and advantages in usage and security. For occasional usage, 128 Kbit/s (ISDN) can be considered sufficient, especially in conjunction with lossy compression. ADSL should be chosen when a more frequent usage is anticipated, whereby lossy compression may be omitted. Due to higher bandwidths and improved usability, the web-based approach appears superior to conventional teleradiology systems.

Hollow halloysite nanotubes have been used as nanocontainers for loading and for the triggered release of calcium hydroxide for paper preservation. A strategy for placing end-stoppers into the tubular nanocontainer is proposed and the sustained release from the cavity is reported. The incorporation of Ca(OH)2 into the nanotube lumen, as demonstrated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping, retards the carbonatation, delaying the reaction with CO2 gas. This effect can be further controlled by placing the end-stoppers. The obtained material is tested for paper deacidification. We prove that adding halloysite filled with Ca(OH)2 to paper can reduce the impact of acid exposure on both the mechanical performance and pH alteration. The end-stoppers have a double effect: they preserve the calcium hydroxide from carbonation, and they prevent from the formation of highly basic pH and trigger the response to acid exposure minimizing the pH drop-down. These features are promising for a composite nanoadditive in the smart protection of cellulose-based materials. PMID:28788058

Human-machine interfaces have evolved, benefiting from the growing access to devices with superior, embedded signal-processing capabilities, as well as through new sensors that allow the estimation of movements and gestures, resulting in increasingly intuitive interfaces. In this context, sensor fusion for the estimation of the spatial orientation of body segments allows to achieve more robust solutions, overcoming specific disadvantages derived from the use of isolated sensors, such as the sensitivity of magnetic-field sensors to external influences, when used in uncontrolled environments. In this work, a method for the combination of image-processing data and angular-velocity registers from a 3D MEMS gyroscope, through a Discrete-time Kalman Filter, is proposed and deployed as an alternate user interface for mobile devices, in which an on-screen pointer is controlled with head movements. Results concerning general performance of the method are presented, as well as a comparative analysis, under a dedicated test application, with results from a previous version of this system, in which the relative-orientation information was acquired directly from MEMS sensors (3D magnetometer-accelerometer). These results show an improved response for this new version of the pointer, both in terms of precision and response time, while keeping many of the benefits that were highlighted for its predecessor, giving place to a complementary method for signal acquisition that can be used as an alternative-input device, as well as for accessibility solutions.

Human studies are one of the most valuable sources of knowledge in biomedical research, but data about their design and results are currently widely dispersed in siloed systems. Federation of these data is needed to facilitate large-scale data analysis to realize the goals of evidence-based medicine. The Human Studies Database project has developed an informatics infrastructure for federated query of human studies databases, using a generalizable approach to ontology-based data access. Our approach has three main components. First, the Ontology of Clinical Research (OCRe) provides the reference semantics. Second, a data model, automatically derived from OCRe into XSD, maintains semantic synchrony of the underlying representations while facilitating data acquisition using common XML technologies. Finally, the Query Integrator issues queries distributed over the data, OCRe, and other ontologies such as SNOMED in BioPortal. We report on a demonstration of this infrastructure on data acquired from institutional systems and from ClinicalTrials.gov. PMID:23304360

This paper presents a medium accesscontrol and scheduling scheme for wireless sensor networks. It uses time trees for sending data from the sensor node to the base station. For an energy efficient operation of the sensor networks in a distributed manner, time trees are built in order to reduce the collision probability and to minimize the total energy required to send data to the base station. A time tree is a data gathering tree where the base station is the root and each sensor node is either a relaying or a leaf node of the tree. Each tree operates in a different time schedule with possibly different activation rates. Through the simulation, the proposed scheme that uses time trees shows better characteristics toward burst traffic than the previous energy and data arrival rate scheme. PMID:22319270

This paper presents a medium accesscontrol and scheduling scheme for wireless sensor networks. It uses time trees for sending data from the sensor node to the base station. For an energy efficient operation of the sensor networks in a distributed manner, time trees are built in order to reduce the collision probability and to minimize the total energy required to send data to the base station. A time tree is a data gathering tree where the base station is the root and each sensor node is either a relaying or a leaf node of the tree. Each tree operates in a different time schedule with possibly different activation rates. Through the simulation, the proposed scheme that uses time trees shows better characteristics toward burst traffic than the previous energy and data arrival rate scheme.

New wireless network paradigms will demand higher spectrum use and availability to cope with emerging data-hungry devices. Traditional static spectrum allocation policies cause spectrum scarcity, and new paradigms such as Cognitive Radio (CR) and new protocols and techniques need to be developed in order to have efficient spectrum usage. Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocols are accountable for recognizing free spectrum, scheduling available resources and coordinating the coexistence of heterogeneous systems and users. This paper provides an ample review of the state-of-the-art MAC protocols, which mainly focuses on Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks (CRAHN). First, a description of the cognitive radio fundamental functions is presented. Next, MAC protocols are divided into three groups, which are based on their channel access mechanism, namely time-slotted protocol, random access protocol and hybrid protocol. In each group, a detailed and comprehensive explanation of the latest MAC protocols is presented, as well as the pros and cons of each protocol. A discussion on future challenges for CRAHN MAC protocols is included with a comparison of the protocols from a functional perspective.

New wireless network paradigms will demand higher spectrum use and availability to cope with emerging data-hungry devices. Traditional static spectrum allocation policies cause spectrum scarcity, and new paradigms such as Cognitive Radio (CR) and new protocols and techniques need to be developed in order to have efficient spectrum usage. Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocols are accountable for recognizing free spectrum, scheduling available resources and coordinating the coexistence of heterogeneous systems and users. This paper provides an ample review of the state-of-the-art MAC protocols, which mainly focuses on Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks (CRAHN). First, a description of the cognitive radio fundamental functions is presented. Next, MAC protocols are divided into three groups, which are based on their channel access mechanism, namely time-slotted protocol, random access protocol and hybrid protocol. In each group, a detailed and comprehensive explanation of the latest MAC protocols is presented, as well as the pros and cons of each protocol. A discussion on future challenges for CRAHN MAC protocols is included with a comparison of the protocols from a functional perspective. PMID:28926952

The energies of atomic processes in resistive random access memories (RRAMs) are calculated for four typical oxides, HfO2, TiO2, Ta2O5, and Al2O3, to define a materials selection process. O vacancies have the lowest defect formation energy in the O-poor limit and dominate the processes. A band diagram defines the operating Fermi energy and O chemical potential range. It is shown how the scavenger metal can be used to vary the O vacancy formation energy, via controlling the O chemical potential, and the mean Fermi energy. The high endurance of Ta2O5 RRAM is related to its more stable amorphous phase and the adaptive lattice rearrangements of its O vacancy.

The energies of atomic processes in resistive random access memories (RRAMs) are calculated for four typical oxides, HfO{sub 2}, TiO{sub 2}, Ta{sub 2}O{sub 5}, and Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}, to define a materials selection process. O vacancies have the lowest defect formation energy in the O-poor limit and dominate the processes. A band diagram defines the operating Fermi energy and O chemical potential range. It is shown how the scavenger metal can be used to vary the O vacancy formation energy, via controlling the O chemical potential, and the mean Fermi energy. The high endurance of Ta{sub 2}O{sub 5} RRAM is related to its more stable amorphous phase and the adaptive lattice rearrangements of its O vacancy.

This article empirically assesses whether age-restricted access to abortion and the birth control pill influence minors' fertility in the United States. There is not a strong consensus in previous literature regarding the relationship between laws restricting minors' access to abortion and minors' birth rates. This is the first study to recognize that state laws in place prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision enabled minors to legally consent to surgical treatment-including abortion-in some states but not in others, and to construct abortion access variables reflecting this. In this article, age-specific policy variables measure either a minor's legal ability to obtain an abortion or to obtain the birth control pill without parental involvement. I find fairly strong evidence that young women's birth rates dropped as a result of abortion access as well as evidence that birth control pill access led to a drop in birth rates among whites.

Passwords tend to be handled carelessly, and so are easily lost or stolen. Because they are intangible, their loss or theft generally goes unnoticed. Because they are constant, they may be used by anyone for as long as they remain in active use by a legitimate user. A step up in password security is offered by a new range of products which generate a new code each time the device is used. Devices are being produced in packages as small as a standard plastic credit card, including internal battery power, integral keyboard and LCD display. Security features of the Smart Card are reviewed, and several random access code generators currently available in the commercial marketplace are described.

The explosive growth of both fixed and mobile data-centric traffic along with the inevitable trend towards all-IP/Ethernet transport protocols and packet switched networks will ultimately lead to an all-packet-based converged fixed-mobile optical transport network from the core all the way out to the access network. To address the increasing capacity and speed requirements in the access networks, Wavelength-Division Multiplexed (WDM) and/or Coarse WDM (CWDM)-based Passive Optical Networks (PONs) are expected to emerge as the next-generation optical access infrastructures. However, due to several techno-economic hurdles, CWDM-PONs are still considered an expensive solution and have not yet made any significant inroads into the current access area. One of the key technology hurdles is the scalability of the CWDM-based PONs. Passive component optical insertion losses limit the reach of the network or the number of served optical network units (ONUs). In the recent years, optical amplified CWDM approaches have emerged and new designs of optical amplifiers have been proposed and demonstrated. The critical design parameter for these amplifiers is the very wide optical amplification bandwidth (e.g., 340 nm combined for both directions). The objective of this PhD dissertation work is first to engineer ring and tree-ring based PON architectures that can achieve longer unamplified PON reach and/or provide service to a greater number of ONUs and customers. Secondly is to develop new novel optical amplifier schemes to further address the scalability limitation of the CWDM-based PONs. Specifically, this work proposes and develops novel ultra wide-band hybrid Raman-Optical parametric amplifier (HROPA) schemes that operate over nearly the entire specified CWDM band to provide 340 nm bidirectional optical gain bandwidth over the amplified PON's downstream and upstream CWDM wavelength bands (about 170 nm in each direction). The performance of the proposed HROPA schemes is assessed

Attribute based encryption (ABE) and attribute based signature (ABS) provide flexible accesscontrol with authentication for data sharing between users, but realizing both functions will bring about too much computation burden. In this paper, we combine the advantages of CP-ABE with ABS and propose a ciphertext policy attribute based signcryption scheme. In our scheme, only legal receivers can decrypt the ciphertext and verify the signature signed by data owner. Furthermore, we use linear secret sharing scheme instead of tree structure to avoid the frequent calls of recursive algorithm. By security and performance analysis, we prove that our scheme is secure as well as gains higher efficiency.

In this paper, we investigate the quantized conduction behavior of conductive bridge random access memory (CBRAM) with varied materials and ramping rates. We report stable and reproducible quantized conductance states with integer multiples of fundamental conductance obtained by optimizing the voltage ramping rate and the Ti-diffusion barrier (DB) at the Cu/HfO2 interface. Owing to controlled diffusion of Cu ions by the Ti-DB and the optimized ramping rate, through which it was possible to control the time delay of Cu ion reduction, more than seven levels of discrete conductance states were clearly observed. Analytical modeling was performed to determine the rate-limiting step in filament growth based on an electrochemical redox reaction. Our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of quantized conductance behaviors provide a promising future for the multi-bit CBRAM device.

In this paper, we investigate the quantized conduction behavior of conductive bridge random access memory (CBRAM) with varied materials and ramping rates. We report stable and reproducible quantized conductance states with integer multiples of fundamental conductance obtained by optimizing the voltage ramping rate and the Ti-diffusion barrier (DB) at the Cu/HfO2 interface. Owing to controlled diffusion of Cu ions by the Ti-DB and the optimized ramping rate, through which it was possible to control the time delay of Cu ion reduction, more than seven levels of discrete conductance states were clearly observed. Analytical modeling was performed to determine the rate-limiting step in filament growth based on an electrochemical redox reaction. Our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of quantized conductance behaviors provide a promising future for the multi-bit CBRAM device.

Tongue Drive System (TDS) is a wireless, wearable assistive technology that enables individuals with severe motor impairments access computers, drive wheelchairs, and control their environments using tongue motion. In this paper, we have evaluated the TDS performance as a computer input device using ISO9241-9 standard tasks for pointing and selecting, based on the well known Fitts' Law, and as a powered wheelchair controller through an obstacle course navigation task. Nine able-bodied subjects who already had tongue piercing participated in this trial over 5 sessions during 5 weeks, allowing us to study the TDS learning process and its current limiting factors. Subjects worn tongue rings made of titanium in the form of a barbell with a small rare earth magnetic tracer hermetically sealed inside the upper ball. Comparing the results between 1(st) and 5(th) sessions showed that subjects' performance improved in all the measures through 5 sessions, demonstrating the effects of learning.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) has the advantages of being a non-invasive, non-radiation emitting and low-cost biological tissue imaging method, and many recent studies have employed this technology. By improving the spatial resolution and developing a new method for constantly improving the flexibility of the experimental device, the system can perform data acquisition rapidly and conveniently. We propose a method for rapid data acquisition based on multiple access coding; it can acquire data in parallel, and the system can greatly improve the temporal resolution of the data acquisition step in diffuse optical tomography thereafter. We simulate the encoding and decoding process of the source-detector pair and successfully isolate the source signal from mixed signals. The DOT image reconstruction highlight the effectiveness of the system.

The VIALACTEA project has a work package dedicated to "Tools and Infrastructure" and, inside it, a task for the "Database and Virtual Observatory Infrastructure". This task aims at providing an infrastructure to store all the resources needed by the, more purposely, scientific work packages of the project itself. This infrastructure includes a combination of: storage facilities, relational databases and web services on top of them, and has taken, as a whole, the name of VIALACTEA Knowledge Base (VLKB). This contribution illustrates the current status of this VLKB. It details the set of data resources put together; describes the database that allows data discovery through VO inspired metadata maintenance; illustrates the discovery, cutout and access services built on top of the former two for the users to exploit the data content.

We describe an approach to improving the testability of complex software systems with software constructs modeled after the hardware JTAG bus, used to provide visibility and controlability in testing digital circuits.

...The Librarian of Congress announces that the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively controlaccess to copyrighted works shall not apply to persons who engage in noninfringing uses of six classes of copyrighted works.

The implementation of advanced access appointment systems has improved continuity of care, patient and physician satisfaction, physician productivity, and average physician panel size in private practice and group-model HMO settings. This study's purpose was to document the patient care benefits, practice management benefits, and educational outcomes from the controlled implementation of an advanced access appointment system in a residency family medicine center. Two faculty-resident teams were created. One team adopted the advanced access system while the other team continued using a traditional access system. Outcome measures included length of time needed to obtain an appointment (days to third available appointment), continuity (percentage of visits with the patient's designated provider), no-show rates, productivity, visits lost to outside providers, panel sizes, and patient satisfaction. Outcomes were measured at baseline and quarterly for 1 year after initial implementation. After implementation, the "days to third available appointment" for the advanced access group was 5 days, compared to 21 days for the traditional access group. A significant improvement in continuity (ie, a match between the primary care physician and patient) for the advanced access team was found. Comparison of no-show rates between the advanced access and traditional access teams revealed significant between-subjects effect, but controlling for within-subject variation using repeated measures ANOVA eliminated this effect. Advanced access residents increased their continuity above 50% while increasing provider satisfaction with office practice and scope of practice. Faculty and residents can successfully use advanced access. Advanced access can enhance residency education by reducing appointment delays and significantly increasing the patient-primary care physician match.

With the rapid development of geographic information services, Web Geographic Information Systems (WebGIS) have become an indispensable part of everyday life; correspondingly, map search engines have become extremely popular with users and WebGIS sites receive a massive volume of requests for access. These WebGIS users and the content accessed have regional characteristics; to understand regional patterns, we mined regional WebGIS user access patterns based on a weighted bipartite network. We first established a weighted bipartite network model for regional user access to a WebGIS. Then, based on the massive user WebGIS access logs, we clustered geographic information accessed and thereby identified hot access areas. Finally we quantitatively analyzed the access interests of regional users and the visitation volume characteristics of regional user access to these hot access areas in terms of user access permeability, user usage rate, and user access viscosity. Our research results show that regional user access to WebGIS is spatially aggregated, and the hot access areas that regional users accessed are associated with specific periods of time. Most regional user contact with hot accessed areas is variable and intermittent but for some users, their access to certain areas is continuous as it is associated with ongoing or recurrent objectives. The weighted bipartite network model for regional user WebGIS access provides a valid analysis method for studying user behaviour in WebGIS and the proposed access pattern exhibits access interest of regional user is spatiotemporal aggregated and presents a heavy-tailed distribution. Understanding user access patterns is good for WebGIS providers and supports better operational decision-making, and helpful for developers when optimizing WebGIS system architecture and deployment, so as to improve the user experience and to expand the popularity of WebGIS.

This hypothetical order provides the requirements and instructions for the Springfield Processing Plant (SPP) Vehicle Gate and Entry Control Point (ECP) in the perimeter access building. The purpose of this post is to prevent the theft, sabotage or diversion of nuclear material (NM), controlaccess and exit at the protected area, and to respond to emergencies according the SPP Guard Force (GF) Contingency Plan and as directed by a Guard Force Supervisor.

Nowadays, e-healthcare is a main advancement and upcoming technology in healthcare industry that contributes to setting up automated and efficient healthcare infrastructures. Unfortunately, several security aspects remain as main challenges towards secure and privacy-preserving e-healthcare systems. From the accesscontrol perspective, e-healthcare systems face several issues due to the necessity of defining (at the same time) rigorous and flexible accesscontrol solutions. This delicate and irregular balance between flexibility and robustness has an immediate impact on the compliance of the deployed accesscontrol policy. To address this issue, the paper defines a general framework to organize thinking about verifying, validating and monitoring the compliance of accesscontrol policies in the context of e-healthcare databases. We study the problem of the conformity of low level policies within relational databases and we particularly focus on the case of a medical-records management database defined in the context of a Medical Information System. We propose an advanced solution for deploying reliable and efficient accesscontrol policies. Our solution extends the traditional lifecycle of an accesscontrol policy and allows mainly managing the compliance of the policy. We refer to an example to illustrate the relevance of our proposal.

This paper introduces the design, implementation, and performance analysis of the scalable and mobility-aware hybrid protocol named boarder node medium accesscontrol (BN-MAC) for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which leverages the characteristics of scheduled and contention-based MAC protocols. Like contention-based MAC protocols, BN-MAC achieves high channel utilization, network adaptability under heavy traffic and mobility, and low latency and overhead. Like schedule-based MAC protocols, BN-MAC reduces idle listening time, emissions, and collision handling at low cost at one-hop neighbor nodes and achieves high channel utilization under heavy network loads. BN-MAC is particularly designed for region-wise WSNs. Each region is controlled by a boarder node (BN), which is of paramount importance. The BN coordinates with the remaining nodes within and beyond the region. Unlike other hybrid MAC protocols, BN-MAC incorporates three promising models that further reduce the energy consumption, idle listening time, overhearing, and congestion to improve the throughput and reduce the latency. One of the models used with BN-MAC is automatic active and sleep (AAS), which reduces the ideal listening time. When nodes finish their monitoring process, AAS lets them automatically go into the sleep state to avoid the idle listening state. Another model used in BN-MAC is the intelligent decision-making (IDM) model, which helps the nodes sense the nature of the environment. Based on the nature of the environment, the nodes decide whether to use the active or passive mode. This decision power of the nodes further reduces energy consumption because the nodes turn off the radio of the transceiver in the passive mode. The third model is the least-distance smart neighboring search (LDSNS), which determines the shortest efficient path to the one-hop neighbor and also provides cross-layering support to handle the mobility of the nodes. The BN-MAC also incorporates a semi

This paper introduces the design, implementation, and performance analysis of the scalable and mobility-aware hybrid protocol named boarder node medium accesscontrol (BN-MAC) for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which leverages the characteristics of scheduled and contention-based MAC protocols. Like contention-based MAC protocols, BN-MAC achieves high channel utilization, network adaptability under heavy traffic and mobility, and low latency and overhead. Like schedule-based MAC protocols, BN-MAC reduces idle listening time, emissions, and collision handling at low cost at one-hop neighbor nodes and achieves high channel utilization under heavy network loads. BN-MAC is particularly designed for region-wise WSNs. Each region is controlled by a boarder node (BN), which is of paramount importance. The BN coordinates with the remaining nodes within and beyond the region. Unlike other hybrid MAC protocols, BN-MAC incorporates three promising models that further reduce the energy consumption, idle listening time, overhearing, and congestion to improve the throughput and reduce the latency. One of the models used with BN-MAC is automatic active and sleep (AAS), which reduces the ideal listening time. When nodes finish their monitoring process, AAS lets them automatically go into the sleep state to avoid the idle listening state. Another model used in BN-MAC is the intelligent decision-making (IDM) model, which helps the nodes sense the nature of the environment. Based on the nature of the environment, the nodes decide whether to use the active or passive mode. This decision power of the nodes further reduces energy consumption because the nodes turn off the radio of the transceiver in the passive mode. The third model is the least-distance smart neighboring search (LDSNS), which determines the shortest efficient path to the one-hop neighbor and also provides cross-layering support to handle the mobility of the nodes. The BN-MAC also incorporates a semi

Ninety-six participants, who were younger (20 years) or older (68 years) adults and either monolingual or bilingual, completed tasks assessing working memory, lexical retrieval, and executive control. Younger participants performed most of the tasks better than older participants, confirming the effect of aging on these processes. The effect of…

Participants in this discussion of the potential of school-based health care services for adolescents included family medicine physicians, school health coordinators, a school nurse, and a community worker. It was noted that health care for adolescents tends to be either inaccessible or underutilized, largely because of a lack of sensitivity to adolescent culture and values. An ideal service for adolescents would offer immediate services for crises, strict confidentiality, ready access to prescribed medications, a sliding-scale scheme, and a staff that is tolerant of divergent values and life-styles. School-based pilot adolescent clinics have been established by the University of New Mexico's Department of Family, Community, and Emergency Medicine to test the community-oriented health care model. On-site clinics provide urgent medical care, family planning, pregnancy testing, psychological counseling, alcohol and drug counseling, and classroom health education. Experience with these programs has demonstrated the necessity for an alliance among the health team and the school administration, parents, and students. Financial, ethical, and political factors can serve as constraints to school-based programs. In some cases, school administrators have been resistant to the provision of contraception to students on school grounds and parents have been unwilling to accept the adolescent's right to confidentiality. These problems in part stem from having 2 separate systems, each with its own values, orientation, and responsibilities, housed in 1 facility. In addition, there have been problems generating awareness of the school-based clinic among students. Health education theater groups, peer counseling, and student-run community services have been effective, however, in increasing student participation. It has been helpful to mold clinic services to meet the needs identified by teenagers themselves. There is an interest not only in curative services, but in services focused

We examined reports of insurance-based discrimination and its association with insurance type and access to care in the early years of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We used data from the 2013 Minnesota Health Access Survey to identify 4123 Minnesota adults aged 18 to 64 years who reported about their experiences of insurance-based discrimination. We modeled the association between discrimination and insurance type and predicted odds of having reduced access to care among those reporting discrimination, controlling for sociodemographic factors. Data were weighted to represent the state's population. Reports of insurance-based discrimination were higher among uninsured (25%) and publicly insured (21%) adults than among privately insured adults (3%), which held in the regression analysis. Those reporting discrimination had higher odds of lacking a usual source of care, lacking confidence in getting care, forgoing care because of cost, and experiencing provider-level barriers than those who did not. Further research and policy interventions are needed to address insurance-based discrimination in health care settings.

Objectives. We examined reports of insurance-based discrimination and its association with insurance type and access to care in the early years of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Methods. We used data from the 2013 Minnesota Health Access Survey to identify 4123 Minnesota adults aged 18 to 64 years who reported about their experiences of insurance-based discrimination. We modeled the association between discrimination and insurance type and predicted odds of having reduced access to care among those reporting discrimination, controlling for sociodemographic factors. Data were weighted to represent the state’s population. Results. Reports of insurance-based discrimination were higher among uninsured (25%) and publicly insured (21%) adults than among privately insured adults (3%), which held in the regression analysis. Those reporting discrimination had higher odds of lacking a usual source of care, lacking confidence in getting care, forgoing care because of cost, and experiencing provider-level barriers than those who did not. Conclusions. Further research and policy interventions are needed to address insurance-based discrimination in health care settings. PMID:25905821

This paper presents an implementation of the unfalsified control (UC) method using the Riccati-based parameterisation of ? controllers. The method provides an infinite controller set to (un)falsify the real-time data streams seeking for the best performance. Different sets may be designed to increase the degrees of freedom of the set of controller candidates to perform UC. In general, a set of m central controllers could be designed, each one seeking different objectives and all with their own parameterisation as a function of a stable and bounded transfer matrix. For example, one controller parameterisation could be designed to solve the robust stability of a model set which covers the physical system, therefore guaranteeing feasibility. The implementation requires the online optimisation of either quadratic fractional or quadratic problems, depending on the selection of the cost function. A multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) time-varying model of a permanent magnet synchronous generator illustrates the use of this technique.

Patients undergoing hemodialysis are highly susceptible to infections, which could lead to morbidity and mortality. One of the major sources of infections stems from the mishandling of hemodialysis access sites. Although healthcare workers receive training on how to aseptically handle hemodialysis catheters, the increasing number of blood infections associated with dialysis suggests that the conventional approach to training may not be sufficient to ensure a clear understanding of the necessary knowledge and skills. With advancements in digital technology, computer-assisted learning has been gaining popularity as an approach to teaching clinical skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-based training system developed to teach healthcare workers catheter-access hemodialysis management. Forty nurses were recruited and randomly assigned into two groups: the control group, which received conventional training only; and the experimental group, which received both conventional and computer-based training. A knowledge test and a skills competence test were administered to both groups before and after the intervention to evaluate their performance. The results show that the performance of the nurses in the experimental group was significantly better than that in the control group, indicating that the proposed training system is an effective tool for supplementing the learning of catheter-access hemodialysis management.

Currently, Web-basedaccess to mini-PACS or similar databases commonly utilizes either JavaScript, Java applets or ActiveX controls. Many sites do not permit applets or controls or other binary objects for fear of viruses or worms sent by malicious users. In addition, the typical CGI query mechanism requires several parameters to be sent with the http GET/POST request, which may identify the patient in some way; this in unacceptable for privacy protection. Also unacceptable are pages produced by server-side scripts which can be cached by the browser, since these may also contain sensitive information. We propose a simple mechanism for access to patient information, including images, which guarantees security of information, makes it impossible to bookmark the page, or to return to the page after some defined length of time. In addition, this mechanism is simple, therefore permitting rapid access without the need to initially download an interface such as an applet or control. In addition to image display, the design of the site allows the user to view and save movies of multi-phasic data, or to construct multi-frame datasets from entire series. These capabilities make the site attractive for research purposes such as teaching file preparation.

A fundamental concern of any secure group communication system is that of key management. Wireless environments create new key management problems and requirements to solve these problems. One such core requirement in these emerging networks is that of self-healing. In systems where users can be offline and miss updates self healing allows a user to recover lost keys and get back into the secure communication without putting extra burden on the group manager. Clearly self healing must be only available to authorized users and this creates more challenges in that we must ensure unauthorized or revoked users cannot, themselves or by means of collusion, avail of self healing. To this end we enhance the one-way key chain based self-healing key distribution of Dutta et al. by introducing a collusion resistance property between the revoked users and the newly joined users. Our scheme is based on the concept of access polynomials. These can be loosely thought of as white lists of authorized users as opposed to the more widely used revocation polynomials or black lists of revoked users. We also allow each user a pre-arranged life cycle distributed by the group manager. Our scheme provides better efficiency in terms of storage, and the communication and computation costs do not increase as the number of sessions grows as compared to most current schemes. We analyze our scheme in an appropriate security model and prove that the proposed scheme is computationally secure and not only achieving forward and backward secrecy, but also resisting collusion between the new joined users and the revoked users. Unlike most existing schemes the new scheme allows temporary revocation. Also unlike existing schemes, our construction does not collapse if the number of revoked users crosses a threshold value. This feature increases resilience against revocation based denial of service (DOS) attacks and thus improves availability of communication channel.

Advanced guidance and control (AG&C) technologies are critical for meeting safety, reliability, and cost requirements for the next generation of reusable launch vehicle (RLV), whether it is fully rocket-powered or has air- breathing components. This becomes clear upon examining the number of expendable launch vehicle failures in the recent past where AG&C technologies could have saved a RLV with the same failure mode, the additional vehicle problems where t h i s technology applies, and the costs and time associated with mission design with or without all these failure issues. The state-of-the-art in guidance and control technology, as well as in computing technology, is the point where we can look to the possibility of being able to safely return a RLV in any situation where it can physically be recovered. This paper outlines reasons for AWC, current technology efforts, and the additional work needed for making this goal a reality. There are a number of approaches to AG&C that have the potential for achieving the desired goals. For some of these methods, we compare the results of tests designed to demonstrate the achievement of the goals. Tests up to now have been focused on rocket-powered vehicles; application to hypersonic air-breathers is planned. We list the test cases used to demonstrate that the desired results are achieved, briefly describe an automated test scoring method, and display results of the tests. Some of the technology components have reached the maturity level where they are ready for application to a new vehicle concept, while others are not far along in development.

This study investigates the feasibility of remote quality control using a host of advanced automation equipment with Internet accessibility. Recent emphasis on product quality and reduction of waste stems from the dynamic, globalized and customer-driven market, which brings opportunities and threats to companies, depending on the response speed and production strategies. The current trends in industry also include a wide spread of distributed manufacturing systems, where design, production, and management facilities are geographically dispersed. This situation mandates not only the accessibility to remotely located production equipment for monitoring and control, but efficient means of responding to changing environment to counter process variations and diverse customer demands. To compete under such an environment, companies are striving to achieve 100%, sensor-based, automated inspection for zero-defect manufacturing. In this study, the Internet-based quality control scheme is referred to as "E-Quality for Manufacturing" or "EQM" for short. By its definition, EQM refers to a holistic approach to design and to embed efficient quality control functions in the context of network integrated manufacturing systems. Such system let designers located far away from the production facility to monitor, control and adjust the quality inspection processes as production design evolves.

Introduction Novartis recently launched Novartis Access, an initiative to provide a basket of reduced price medicines for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to be sold through the public and private non-profit sectors in programme countries. This study will evaluate the impact of Novartis Access on the availability and price of NCD medicines at health facilities and households in Kenya, the first country to receive the programme. Methods and analysis This study will be a cluster-randomised controlled trial. 8 counties in Kenya will be randomly assigned to the intervention or control group using a covariate constrained randomisation method to maximise balance on demographic and health characteristics. In intervention counties, public and private non-profit health facilities will be able to order Novartis Access NCD medicines from the Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies (MEDS). Data will be collected from a random sample of 384 health facilities and 800 households at baseline, midline after 1-year of intervention, and end-line after 2 years. Quarterly surveillance data will also be collected from health facilities and a subsample of households through phone-based interviews. Households will be eligible if at least one resident has been previously diagnosed and prescribed a medicine for an NCD addressed by Novartis Access, including hypertension and diabetes. The primary outcomes will be availability and price of NCD medicines at health facilities, and availability, price, and expenditures on NCD medicines at households. Impacts will be estimated using intention-to-treat analysis. Ethics and dissemination This protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Strathmore University and at Boston University. Informed consent will be obtained from all participants at the start of the trial. The findings of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, international conferences, and meetings and events organised with local stakeholders

The satisfaction of all communication needs from single households and business companies over a single access infrastructure is probably the most challenging topic in communications technology today. But even though the so-called "Last Mile Access Bottleneck" is well known since more than ten years and many distribution technologies have been tried out, the optimal solution has not yet been found and paying commercial access networks offering all service classes are still rare today. Conventional services like telephone, radio and TV, as well as new and emerging services like email, web browsing, online-gaming, video conferences, business data transfer or external data storage can all be transmitted over the well known and cost effective Ethernet networking protocol standard. Key requirements for the deployment technology driven by the different services are high data rates to the single customer, security, moderate deployment costs and good scalability to number and density of users, quick and flexible deployment without legal impediments and high availability, referring to the properties of optical and wireless communication. We demonstrate all elements of an Ethernet Access Network based on Free Space Optic distribution technology. Main physical parts are Central Office, Distribution Network and Customer Equipment. Transmission of different services, as well as configuration, service upgrades and remote control of the network are handled by networking features over one FSO connection. All parts of the network are proven, the latest commercially available technology. The set up is flexible and can be adapted to any more specific need if required.

Underage drinking continues to be an important public health problem and a challenge to the substance abuse prevention field. Community-based interventions designed to more rigorously control underage access to alcohol through retailer education and greater enforcement of underage drinking laws have been advocated as potentially effective strategies to help address this problem, but studies designed to evaluate such interventions are sparse. To address this issue we conducted a randomized trial involving 36 communities to test the combined effectiveness of five interrelated intervention components designed to reduce underage access to alcohol. The intervention was found to be effective in reducing the likelihood that retail clerks would sell alcohol to underage-looking buyers, but did not reduce underage drinking or the perceived availability of alcohol among high school students. Post hoc analyses, however, revealed significant associations between the level of underage drinking law enforcement in the intervention communities and reductions in both 30-day use of alcohol and binge drinking. The findings highlight the difficulty in reducing youth drinking even when efforts to curtail retail access are successful. Study findings also suggest that high intensity implementation of underage drinking law enforcement can reduce underage drinking. Any such effects of enhanced enforcement on underage drinking appear to be more directly attributable to an increase in perceived likelihood of enforcement and the resultant perceived inconveniences and/or sanctions to potential drinkers, than to a reduction in access to alcohol per se. PMID:22688848

Slot IP Internet Protocol LAN Local Area Network MAC Medium AccessControl MACAW Medium Access Protocol for Wireless LANs MANET Mobile Ad-hoc...Unforced state – It waits after entering the state until it is invoked by another process or an interrupt. It is in dark grey on this report, and red ... green in OPNET. A MAC process model is built for general initialisations of the MAC module, and to invoke the selected MAC protocol process model

The application of accesscontrols on internal information necessarily impacts the availability of that information for sharing inside the enterprise. The decisions establishing the degree of control are a crucial first step to balance the requirements to protect and share. This research develops a set of basic decision factors and examines other…

The application of accesscontrols on internal information necessarily impacts the availability of that information for sharing inside the enterprise. The decisions establishing the degree of control are a crucial first step to balance the requirements to protect and share. This research develops a set of basic decision factors and examines other…

This paper proposes a novel non-orthogonal optical multicarrier access system based on filter bank and sparse code multiple access (SCMA). It offers released frequency offset and better spectral efficiency for multicarrier access. An experiment of 73.68 Gb/s filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC) SCMA system with 60 km single mode fiber link is performed to demonstrate the feasibility. The comparison between fast Fourier transform (FFT) based multicarrier and the proposed scheme is also investigated in the experiment.

Vascular access failure is a major cause of morbidity and hospitalization in hemodialysis populations worldwide. Erythropoietin (EPO) potentially can contribute to vascular access stenosis and occlusion by promoting intimal hyperplasia and thrombosis. Intravenous administration of EPO results in a severe, but transient, increase in drug concentration within the vascular access, whereas subcutaneous administration leads to a mild, but sustained, increase in the systemic circulation. The effect of route of administration of EPO on vascular access outcomes is uncertain. Randomized controlled trial. 78 Korean hemodialysis patients were randomly assigned to receive either intravenous (n = 40) or subcutaneous (n = 38) EPO. EPO was administered during dialysis, and the dose was titrated to maintain hemoglobin levels between 9 to 12 g/dL. All patients received EPO 2 or 3 times/wk. Study duration was 4 to 77 months. The primary end point was time to vascular access failure. Analysis was performed using Cox regression analysis. The incidence of access failure was 4.7%/patient-year in the intravenous-therapy group and 12.0%/patient-year in the subcutaneous-therapy group, with an unadjusted hazard ratio of 3.24 (95% confidence interval, 1.31 to 8.00; P = 0.01). After adjustment for dialysis access type, vascular access age, previous intervention, serum phosphorus level, and diabetes mellitus, subcutaneous EPO administration was independently associated with increased vascular access failure (hazard ratio, 3.56; 95% confidence interval, 1.20 to 10.58; P = 0.02). There were no significant differences in either hemoglobin concentration or EPO dosage between the 2 groups during the study period. Relatively small sample size and lack of complete symmetry between the 2 groups with respect to some baseline characteristics. This study suggests that the risk of vascular access failure may be greater with subcutaneous compared with intravenous administration of EPO in hemodialysis

We propose an architecture which enables people to enquire about information available in directory services by voice using regular phones. We implement a Virtual User Agent (VUA) which mediates between the human user and a business directory service. The system enables the user to search for the nearest clinic, gas station by price, motel by price, food / coffee, banks/ATM etc. and fix an appointment, or automatically establish a call between the user and the business party if the user prefers. The user also has an option to receive appointment confirmation by phone, SMS, or e-mail. The VUA is accessible by a toll free DID (Direct Inward Dialing) number using a phone by anyone, anywhere, anytime. We use the Euclidean formula for distance measurement. Since, shorter geodesic distances (on the Earth’s surface) correspond to shorter Euclidean distances (measured by a straight line through the Earth). Our proposed architecture uses Atom XML syndication format protocol for data integration, VoiceXML for creating the voice user interface (VUI) and CCXML for controlling the call components. We also provide an efficient algorithm for parsing Atom feeds which provide data to the system. Moreover, we describe a cost-effective way for providing global access to the VUA based on Asterisk (an open source IP-PBX). We also provide some information on how our system can be integrated with GPS for locating the user coordinates and therefore efficiently and spontaneously enhancing the system response. Additionally, the system has a mechanism for validating the phone numbers in its database, and it updates the number and other information such as daily price of gas, motel etc. automatically using an Atom-based feed. Currently, the commercial directory services (Example 411) do not have facilities to update the listing in the database automatically, so that why callers most of the times get out-of-date phone numbers or other information. Our system can be integrated very easily

State Medicaid programs have expanded home and community-based services (HCBS). This article compares trends and variations in state policies for Medicaid HCBS programs in 2005 and 2010. State limitations on financial eligibility criteria and service benefits have remained stable. Although the use of consumer direction, independent providers, and family care providers has increased, some states do not have these options. The increased adoption of state cost control policies have led to large increases in persons on waiver wait lists. Access could be improved by standardizing and liberalizing state HCBS policies, but state fiscal concerns are barriers to rebalancing between HCBS and institutional services.

The goal of this study was to analyze the genetic divergence among Psidium species accessionsbased on SNPs developed for Eucalyptus. Fifty-three Psidium accessions, including 47 P. guajava, were genotyped with EUCHIP60K. The dendrogram similarity ranged from 0.58 to 1.00, with a cophenetic value of 0.97. Five groups were identified at dendrogram cut point of 0.7: the first with 44 guava accessions, the second with 1 guava accession, the third with 3 P. guineense accessions, the forth with 2 guava accessions, and the fifth with 3 P. cattleianum accessions. The Bayesian analyses suggested seven subpopulations, with formation of two additional groups with guava accessions. Primers designed with Eucalyptus SNP sequences resulted in reliable Psidium amplicons on 6% polyacrylamide gels. In general, the SNP dendrogram agreed with biological genus structure, since different species were not grouped, indicating that transferability among Myrtaceae genus was possible and reliable.

With broadband access network development, the Ethernet technology is more and more applied access network now. It is different from the private network -LAN. The differences lie in four points: customer management, safety management, service management and count-fee management. This paper mainly discusses the safety management related questions. Safety management means that the access network must secure the customer data safety, isolate the broad message which brings the customer private information, such as ARP, DHCP, and protect key equipment from attack. Virtue LAN (VLAN) technology can restrict network broadcast flow. We can config each customer port with a VLAN, so each customer is isolated with others. The IP address bound with VLAN ID can be routed rightly. But this technology brings another question: IP address shortage. VLAN aggregation technology can solve this problem well. Such a mechanism provides several advantages over traditional IPv4 addressing architectures employed in large switched LANs today. With VLAN aggregation technology, we introduce the notion of sub-VLANs and super-VLANs, a much more optimal approach to IP addressing can be realized. This paper will expatiate the VLAN aggregation model and its implementation in Ethernet access network. It is obvious that the customers in different sub-VLANs can not communication to each other because the ARP packet is isolated. Proxy ARP can enable the communication among them. This paper will also expatiate the proxy ARP model and its implementation in Ethernet access network.

In this paper, an extended version of standard susceptible-infected (SI) model is proposed to consider the influence of a medium accesscontrol mechanism on virus spreading in wireless sensor networks. Theoretical analysis shows that the medium accesscontrol mechanism obviously reduces the density of infected nodes in the networks, which has been ignored in previous studies. It is also found that by increasing the network node density or node communication radius greatly increases the number of infected nodes. The theoretical results are confirmed by numerical simulations.

Recently several hierarchical accesscontrol schemes are proposed in the literature to provide security of e-medicine systems. However, most of them are either insecure against 'man-in-the-middle attack' or they require high storage and computational overheads. Wu and Chen proposed a key management method to solve dynamic accesscontrol problems in a user hierarchy based on hybrid cryptosystem. Though their scheme improves computational efficiency over Nikooghadam et al.'s approach, it suffers from large storage space for public parameters in public domain and computational inefficiency due to costly elliptic curve point multiplication. Recently, Nikooghadam and Zakerolhosseini showed that Wu-Chen's scheme is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack. In order to remedy this security weakness in Wu-Chen's scheme, they proposed a secure scheme which is again based on ECC (elliptic curve cryptography) and efficient one-way hash function. However, their scheme incurs huge computational cost for providing verification of public information in the public domain as their scheme uses ECC digital signature which is costly when compared to symmetric-key cryptosystem. In this paper, we propose an effective accesscontrol scheme in user hierarchy which is only based on symmetric-key cryptosystem and efficient one-way hash function. We show that our scheme reduces significantly the storage space for both public and private domains, and computational complexity when compared to Wu-Chen's scheme, Nikooghadam-Zakerolhosseini's scheme, and other related schemes. Through the informal and formal security analysis, we further show that our scheme is secure against different attacks and also man-in-the-middle attack. Moreover, dynamic accesscontrol problems in our scheme are also solved efficiently compared to other related schemes, making our scheme is much suitable for practical applications of e-medicine systems.

This paper presents a home-made voltmeter which has browser-basedcontrols. The voltmeter is basically an analog-to-digital converter implemented with a microprocessor and some supporting circuitry. The browser-basedcontrol system enables one to access the voltmeter through the Internet from anywhere in the world. The control of the instrument is solely through any standard web browser running on any platform; no additional client software is required.

This paper describes a limited accesscontrol system for nuclear facilities which makes use of the eye retinal identity verifier to control the passage of personnel into and out of one or a group of security controlled working areas. This accesscontrol system requires no keys, cards or credentials. The user simply enters his Personal Identification Number (PIN) and takes an eye reading to request passage. The PIN does not have to be kept secret. The system then relies on biometric identity verification of the user, along with other system information, to make the decision of whether or not to unlock the door. It also enforces multiple zones control with personnel tracking and the two-man-rule.

There are hundreds of Web accessibility software options out in the world that serve many different functions. Not surprisingly, many of them are designed for users with a wide range of abilities, with the intent of making the use of computers and the Internet easier for both work and entertainment. There are, however, numerous products available…

This paper is concerned with the development of an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system which interfaces with a Holistic Emergency Care Record (HECR) that aims at managing emergency care holistically by supporting EMS processes and is accessible by Android-enabled mobile devices.

A memory-based parallel data output controller employs associative memories and memory mapping to decommutate multiple channels of telemetry data. The output controller contains a random access memory (RAM) which has at least as many address locations as there are channels. A word counter addresses the RAM which provides as it outputs an encoded peripheral device number and a MSB/LSB-first flag. The encoded device number and a bit counter address a second RAM which contains START and STOP flags to pick out the required bits from the specified word number. The LSB/MSB, START and STOP flags, along with the serial input digital data go to a control block which selectively fills a shift register used to drive the parallel data output bus.

In open environments such as peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, the decision to collaborate with multiple users — e.g., by granting access to a resource — is hard to achieve in practice due to extreme decentralization and the lack of trusted third parties. The literature contains a plethora of applications in which a scalable solution for distributed accesscontrol is crucial. This fact motivates us to propose a protocol to enforce accesscontrol, applicable to networks consisting entirely of untrusted nodes. The main feature of our protocol is that it protects both sensitive permissions and sensitive policies, and does not rely on any centralized authority. We analyze the efficiency (computational effort and communication overhead) as well as the security of our protocol.

The trend of the service architectures developed in telecommunications today is that they should be open in the sense that they can communicate over the borders of different networks. Instead of each network having their own service architecture with their own applications, all networks should be able to use the same applications. 3GPP, the organization developing specifications for the 3G networks has specified the standard Open Service Access (OSA), as a part of the 3G specification. OSA offers different Application Protocol Interfaces that enable an application that resides outside a network to use the capabilities of the network. This paper analyses the performance of an OSA gateway. It is examined how the overload control can be dealt with in a way to best satisfy the operators and the 3'rd parties. There are some guiding principles in the specifications, but a lot of decisions have to be made by the implementors of application servers and OSA gateways. Proposals of different requirements for an OSA architecture exist such as, minimum amount of accepted calls per second and time constraint for the maximal total delay for an application. Maximal and fair throughput have to be prioritized from the 3'rd parties view, but profit is the main interest from the operators point of view. Therefore this paper examines a priority based proposal of an overload control mechanism taking these aspects and requirements into account.

GenoBase integrates genomic information from many existing databases, offering convenient access to the curated data. This document is the first part of a two-part tutorial on how to use GenoBase for accessing integrated genomic data.

GenoBase integrates genomic information from many existing databases, offering convenient access to the curated data. This document is the first part of a two-part tutorial on how to use GenoBase for accessing integrated genomic data.

The public safety spectrum is generally under-utilized due to the unique traffic characteristics of bursty and mission critical. This letter considers the application of dynamic spectrum access (DSA) to the combined spectrum of public safety (PS) and commercial (CMR) users in a common shared network that can provide both PS and CMR services. Our scenario includes the 700MHz Public/Private Partnership which was recently issued by the Federal Communications Commission. We first propose an efficient DSA mechanism to coordinate the combined spectrum, and then establish a call admission control that reflects the proposed DSA in a wideband code division multiple accessbased network. The essentials of our proposed DSA are opportunistic access to the public safety spectrum and priority access to the commercial spectrum. Simulation results show that these schemes are well harmonized in various network environments.

Aspects of an attitude control system were studied and developed for a large space base that is structurally flexible and whose mass properties change rather dramatically during its orbital lifetime. Topics of discussion include the following: (1) space base orbital pointing and maneuvering; (2) angular momentum sizing of actuators; (3) momentum desaturation selection and sizing; (4) multilevel control technique applied to configuration one; (5) one-dimensional model simulation; (6) N-body discrete coordinate simulation; (7) structural analysis math model formulation; and (8) discussion of control problems and control methods.

Fast bandwidth growth urges large-scale high-density access scenarios, where the multiple Passive Optical Networking (PON) system clustered deployment can be adopted as an appropriate solution to fulfill the huge bandwidth demands, especially for a future 5G mobile network. However, the lack of interaction between different optical line terminals (OLTs) results in part of the bandwidth resources waste. To increase the bandwidth efficiency, as well as reduce bandwidth pressure at the edge of a network, we propose a centralized flexible PON architecture based on Time- and Wavelength-Division Multiplexing PON (TWDM PON). It can provide flexible affiliation for optical network units (ONUs) and different OLTs to support access network traffic localization. Specifically, a dynamic ONU grouping algorithm (DGA) is provided to obtain the minimal OLT outbound traffic. Simulation results show that DGA obtains an average 25.23% traffic gain increment under different OLT numbers within a small ONU number situation, and the traffic gain will increase dramatically with the increment of the ONU number. As the DGA can be deployed easily as an application running above the centralized control plane, the proposed architecture can be helpful to improve the network efficiency for future traffic-intensive access scenarios.

This volume lists and describes products pertaining to assistive and rehabilitative technologies in the areas of communication, control, and computer access, as well as special software. Part 1, covering communication for individuals with disabilities, includes products designed as aids to both electronic and nonelectronic communication. It…

... least one of the individuals designated under paragraph (a) of this section must verify that the DEA... authentication credential to satisfy the logical accesscontrols. The second individual must be a DEA registrant... practitioner's DEA registration expires, unless the registration has been renewed. (3) The...

... least one of the individuals designated under paragraph (a) of this section must verify that the DEA... authentication credential to satisfy the logical accesscontrols. The second individual must be a DEA registrant... practitioner's DEA registration expires, unless the registration has been renewed. (3) The...

... least one of the individuals designated under paragraph (a) of this section must verify that the DEA... authentication credential to satisfy the logical accesscontrols. The second individual must be a DEA registrant... practitioner's DEA registration expires, unless the registration has been renewed. (3) The...

... least one of the individuals designated under paragraph (a) of this section must verify that the DEA... authentication credential to satisfy the logical accesscontrols. The second individual must be a DEA registrant... practitioner's DEA registration expires, unless the registration has been renewed. (3) The...

There are two competing research explanations to account for Latinos' underutilization of health services relative to non-Latino Whites in the United States. One hypothesis examines the impact of health locus of control (HLOC) beliefs, while the other focuses on the role of access factors on health care use. To date, the relative strength of…

Accesscontrol mechanisms protect sensitive information from unauthorized users. However, when sensitive information is shared and a Privacy Protection Mechanism (PPM) is not in place, an authorized insider can still compromise the privacy of a person leading to identity disclosure. A PPM can use suppression and generalization to anonymize and…

This paper considers the generation of passwords and their effective application to the problem of controllingaccess to computer resources. After describing the need for and uses of passwords, password schemes are categorized according to selection technique, lifetime, physical characteristics, and information content. Password protection, both…

This paper considers the generation of passwords and their effective application to the problem of controllingaccess to computer resources. After describing the need for and uses of passwords, password schemes are categorized according to selection technique, lifetime, physical characteristics, and information content. Password protection, both…

Prevention of dental disease is the key to improving the nation's oral health. The American Dental Association (ADA) program of prevention and control of dental disease through improved access to comprehensive care concentrates on those who have special difficulties in receiving care: the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, the institutionalized…

There are two competing research explanations to account for Latinos' underutilization of health services relative to non-Latino Whites in the United States. One hypothesis examines the impact of health locus of control (HLOC) beliefs, while the other focuses on the role of access factors on health care use. To date, the relative strength of…

Prevention of dental disease is the key to improving the nation's oral health. The American Dental Association (ADA) program of prevention and control of dental disease through improved access to comprehensive care concentrates on those who have special difficulties in receiving care: the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, the institutionalized…

Accesscontrol mechanisms protect sensitive information from unauthorized users. However, when sensitive information is shared and a Privacy Protection Mechanism (PPM) is not in place, an authorized insider can still compromise the privacy of a person leading to identity disclosure. A PPM can use suppression and generalization to anonymize and…

We have extended the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF) control system software to allow uniform access to data and controls throughout the control system network. Two aspects of this work are discussed here. Of primary interest is the use of standard interfaces and standard messages to allow uniform and easily expandable inter-node communication. A locally designed remote procedure call protocol will be described. Of further interest is the use of distributed databases to allow maximal hardware independence in the controls software. Application programs use local partial copies of the global device description database to resolve symbolic device names.

One of the biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental data baseaccess method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed datasets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image datasets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate database search.

One of the biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental data baseaccess method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed datasets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image datasets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate database search.

The accessibility of dogs in urban areas of Kathmandu valley was measured using the following approaches: determination of the proportion of dogs that bore signs of having been the objects of religious worship and other signs of household association, supplemented by information obtained by interviewing people in the neighbourhood; and the vaccination coverage attained in a rabies control campaign that was preceded by intensive activities to encourage the community to participate. An accessibility rate of 90-95% was determined using the first of these approaches, whereas 75-80% of the total dog population was reached in the vaccination campaign. PMID:2289296

This paper investigates the utility maximization problem for the downlink of the multi-interface multichannel wireless mesh network with orthogonal frequency division multiple access. A cross-layer joint power and multiple accesscontrol algorithm are proposed. Rosen projection matrix is combined with Solodov projection techniques to build a three-memory gradient Rosen projection method, which is applied to solve this optimization problem. The convergence analysis is given and simulations show that the proposed solution achieves significant throughput compared with existing approaches.

This paper investigates the utility maximization problem for the downlink of the multi-interface multichannel wireless mesh network with orthogonal frequency division multiple access. A cross-layer joint power and multiple accesscontrol algorithm are proposed. Rosen projection matrix is combined with Solodov projection techniques to build a three-memory gradient Rosen projection method, which is applied to solve this optimization problem. The convergence analysis is given and simulations show that the proposed solution achieves significant throughput compared with existing approaches. PMID:24883384

Since 1994 the Data Centre of the Spanish Oceanographic Institute develops system for archiving and quality control of oceanographic data. The work started in the frame of the European Marine Science & Technology Programme (MAST) when a consortium of several Mediterranean Data Centres began to work on the MEDATLAS project. Along the years, old software modules for MS DOS were rewritten, improved and migrated to Windows environment. Oceanographic data quality control includes now not only vertical profiles (mainly CTD and bottles observations) but also time series of currents and sea level observations. New powerful routines for analysis and for graphic visualization were added. Data presented originally in ASCII format were organized recently in an open source MySQL database. Nowadays, the IEO, as part of SeaDataNet Infrastructure, has designed and developed a new information system, consistent with the ISO 19115 and SeaDataNet standards, in order to manage the large and diverse marine data and information originated in Spain by different sources, and to interoperate with SeaDataNet. The system works with data stored in ASCII files (MEDATLAS, ODV) as well as data stored within the relational database. The components of the system are: 1.MEDATLAS Format and Quality Control - QCDAMAR: Quality Control of Marine Data. Main set of tools for working with data presented as text files. Includes extended quality control (searching for duplicated cruises and profiles, checking date, position, ship velocity, constant profiles, spikes, density inversion, sounding, acceptable data, impossible regional values,...) and input/output filters. - QCMareas: A set of procedures for the quality control of tide gauge data according to standard international Sea Level Observing System. These procedures include checking for unexpected anomalies in the time series, interpolation, filtering, computation of basic statistics and residuals. 2. DAMAR: A relational data base (MySql) designed to

This study examined weight loss between a community-based, intensive behavioral counseling program (Weight Watchers PointsPlus that included three treatment access modes and a self-help condition. A total of 292 participants were randomized to a Weight Watchers (WW; n=147) or a self-help condition (...

We present a fingerprint authentication scheme based on the optical joint transform correlator (JTC) and further describe its application to the remote accesscontrol of a Network-based Remote Laboratory (NRL). It is built to share a 3D microscopy system of our realistic laboratory in Shenzhen University with the remote co-researchers in Stuttgart University. In this article, we would like to focus on the involved security issues, mainly on the verification of various remote visitors to our NRL. By making use of the JTC-based optical pattern recognition technique as well as the Personal Identification Number (PIN), we are able to achieve the aim of authentication and accesscontrol for any remote visitors. Note that only the authorized remote visitors could be guided to the Virtual Network Computer (VNC), a cross-platform software, which allows the remote visitor to access the desktop applications and visually manipulate the instruments of our NRL through the internet. Specifically to say, when a remote visitor attempts to access to our NRL, a PIN is mandatory required in advance, which is followed by fingerprint capturing and verification. Only if both the PIN and the fingerprint are correct, can one be regarded as an authorized visitor, and then he/she would get the authority to visit our NRL by the VNC. It is also worth noting that the aforementioned "two-step verification" strategy could be further applied to verify the identity levels of various remote visitors, and therefore realize the purpose of diversified visitor management.

Even in the absence of sensory inputs, cortical and thalamic neurons can show structured patterns of ongoing spontaneous activity, whose origins and functional significance are not well understood. We use computer simulations to explore the conditions under which spontaneous activity emerges from a simplified model of multiple interconnected thalamocortical columns linked by long-range, top-down excitatory axons, and to examine its interactions with stimulus-induced activation. Simulations help characterize two main states of activity. First, spontaneous gamma-band oscillations emerge at a precise threshold controlled by ascending neuromodulator systems. Second, within a spontaneously active network, we observe the sudden “ignition” of one out of many possible coherent states of high-level activity amidst cortical neurons with long-distance projections. During such an ignited state, spontaneous activity can block external sensory processing. We relate those properties to experimental observations on the neural bases of endogenous states of consciousness, and particularly the blocking of access to consciousness that occurs in the psychophysical phenomenon of “inattentional blindness,” in which normal subjects intensely engaged in mental activity fail to notice salient but irrelevant sensory stimuli. Although highly simplified, the generic properties of a minimal network may help clarify some of the basic cerebral phenomena underlying the autonomy of consciousness. PMID:15819609

Even in the absence of sensory inputs, cortical and thalamic neurons can show structured patterns of ongoing spontaneous activity, whose origins and functional significance are not well understood. We use computer simulations to explore the conditions under which spontaneous activity emerges from a simplified model of multiple interconnected thalamocortical columns linked by long-range, top-down excitatory axons, and to examine its interactions with stimulus-induced activation. Simulations help characterize two main states of activity. First, spontaneous gamma-band oscillations emerge at a precise threshold controlled by ascending neuromodulator systems. Second, within a spontaneously active network, we observe the sudden "ignition" of one out of many possible coherent states of high-level activity amidst cortical neurons with long-distance projections. During such an ignited state, spontaneous activity can block external sensory processing. We relate those properties to experimental observations on the neural bases of endogenous states of consciousness, and particularly the blocking of access to consciousness that occurs in the psychophysical phenomenon of "inattentional blindness," in which normal subjects intensely engaged in mental activity fail to notice salient but irrelevant sensory stimuli. Although highly simplified, the generic properties of a minimal network may help clarify some of the basic cerebral phenomena underlying the autonomy of consciousness.

Cytosolic ribosomes that stall during translation are split into subunits, and nascent polypeptides trapped in the 60S subunit are ubiquitinated by the ribosome quality control (RQC) pathway. Whether the RQC pathway can also target stalls during cotranslational translocation into the ER is not known. Here we report that listerin and NEMF, core RQC components, are bound to translocon-engaged 60S subunits on native ER membranes. RQC recruitment to the ER in cultured cells is stimulated by translation stalling. Biochemical analyses demonstrated that translocon-targeted nascent polypeptides that subsequently stall are polyubiquitinated in 60S complexes. Ubiquitination at the translocon requires cytosolic exposure of the polypeptide at the ribosome-Sec61 junction. This exposure can result from either failed insertion into the Sec61 channel or partial backsliding of translocating nascent chains. Only Sec61-engaged nascent chains early in their biogenesis were relatively refractory to ubiquitination. Modeling based on recent 60S-RQC and 80S-Sec61 structures suggests that the E3 ligase listerin accesses nascent polypeptides via a gap in the ribosome-translocon junction near the Sec61 lateral gate. Thus the RQC pathway can target stalled translocation intermediates for degradation from the Sec61 channel.

Cytosolic ribosomes that stall during translation are split into subunits, and nascent polypeptides trapped in the 60S subunit are ubiquitinated by the ribosome quality control (RQC) pathway. Whether the RQC pathway can also target stalls during cotranslational translocation into the ER is not known. Here we report that listerin and NEMF, core RQC components, are bound to translocon-engaged 60S subunits on native ER membranes. RQC recruitment to the ER in cultured cells is stimulated by translation stalling. Biochemical analyses demonstrated that translocon-targeted nascent polypeptides that subsequently stall are polyubiquitinated in 60S complexes. Ubiquitination at the translocon requires cytosolic exposure of the polypeptide at the ribosome–Sec61 junction. This exposure can result from either failed insertion into the Sec61 channel or partial backsliding of translocating nascent chains. Only Sec61-engaged nascent chains early in their biogenesis were relatively refractory to ubiquitination. Modeling based on recent 60S–RQC and 80S–Sec61 structures suggests that the E3 ligase listerin accesses nascent polypeptides via a gap in the ribosome–translocon junction near the Sec61 lateral gate. Thus the RQC pathway can target stalled translocation intermediates for degradation from the Sec61 channel. PMID:25877867

Recently, Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has witnessed significant attentions in research and product development due to the growing number of sensor-based applications in healthcare domain. Design of efficient and effective Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocol is one of the fundamental research themes in WBAN. Static on-demand slot allocation to patient data is the main approach adopted in the design of MAC protocol in literature, without considering the type of patient data specifically the level of severity on patient data. This leads to the degradation of the performance of MAC protocols considering effectiveness and traffic adjustability in realistic medical environments. In this context, this paper proposes a Traffic Priority-Aware MAC (TraPy-MAC) protocol for WBAN. It classifies patient data into emergency and non-emergency categories based on the severity of patient data. The threshold value aided classification considers a number of parameters including type of sensor, body placement location, and data transmission time for allocating dedicated slots patient data. Emergency data are not required to carry out contention and slots are allocated by giving the due importance to threshold value of vital sign data. The contention for slots is made efficient in case of non-emergency data considering threshold value in slot allocation. Moreover, the slot allocation to emergency and non-emergency data are performed parallel resulting in performance gain in channel assignment. Two algorithms namely, Detection of Severity on Vital Sign data (DSVS), and ETS Slots allocation based on the Severity on Vital Sign (ETS-SVS) are developed for calculating threshold value and resolving the conflicts of channel assignment, respectively. Simulations are performed in ns2 and results are compared with the state-of-the-art MAC techniques. Analysis of results attests the benefit of TraPy-MAC in comparison with the state-of-the-art MAC in channel assignment in realistic medical

The prosperity of e-health is boosted by fast development of medical devices with wireless communications capability such as wearable devices, tiny sensors, monitoring equipments, etc., which are randomly distributed in clinic environments. The drastically-increasing population of such devices imposes new challenges on the limited wireless resources. To relieve this problem, key knowledge needs to be extracted from massive connection attempts dispersed in the air towards efficient accesscontrol. In this paper, a hybrid periodic-random massive access (HPRMA) scheme for wireless clinical networks employing ultra-narrow band (UNB) techniques is proposed. In particular, the proposed scheme towards accommodating a large population of devices include the following new features. On one hand, it can dynamically adjust the resource allocated for coexisting periodic and random services based on the traffic load learned from signal collision status. On the other hand, the resource allocation within periodic services is thoroughly designed to simultaneously align with the timing requests of differentiated services. Abundant simulation results are also presented to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed HPRMA scheme over baseline schemes including time-division multiple access (TDMA) and random access approach, in terms of channel utilization efficiency, packet drop ratio, etc., for the support of massive devices' services.

DIALOG, an interactive, computer-based information retrieval language, consists of a series of computer programs designed to make use of direct access memory devices in order to provide the user with a rapid means of identifying records within a specific memory bank. Using the system, a library user can be provided access to sixteen distinct and…

This document consists of 11 consecutive issues of the newsletter "Access," published across a four-year period. "Access" presents information on public policy and research of interest to school-based health programs (SBHC) for children and youth. The major topics covered by the newsletters are as follows: (1) a conference,…

Health care reform has changed the landscape for the nation's health safety net, and school-based health centers (SBHCs) remain an important part of this system. However, few large-scale studies have been conducted to assess their impact on access to care. This study investigated differences in access among a nationally representative sample of…

E-learning is a rapidly developing form of education. One of the key characteristics of e-learning is flexibility, which enables easier access to knowledge for everyone. Information and communications technology (ICT), which is e-learning's main component, enables alternative means of accessing the web-based learning materials that comprise the…

Health care reform has changed the landscape for the nation's health safety net, and school-based health centers (SBHCs) remain an important part of this system. However, few large-scale studies have been conducted to assess their impact on access to care. This study investigated differences in access among a nationally representative sample of…

Objective: This pilot study examined the effect of increasing field instructors access to information about evidence-based practices (EBPs) on their level of knowledge and attitudes about EBPs. Method: Eighteen field instructors received training and access to a library with extensive online journals. Half were randomly selected to also receive a…

In e-medicine system, the sharing of patients' medical histories scattered among medical institutions through the Internet is highly desirable. The most immediate cryptographic need certainly is an efficient key management method to solve dynamic access problems in a user hierarchy. In this paper, we propose a practical solution for dynamic access problem in a user hierarchy based on hybrid cryptosystems. When compared with Nikooghadam et al.'s scheme proposed most recently, the time complexity and the required storage space is reduced significantly. Moreover, it provides provable security, and is easy to implement. Therefore, our scheme is more suitable for e-medicine system.

cognitive searzh for information in memory-based per- son judgments is explored by examining an incongruity hypothesis and a negativity hypothesis. The...Accessing Information in Memory-Based Impression Judgments: Incongruity Vs Negativity in Retrieval Selectivity Recent social cognition research has...recently or decide to hire someone based on memory of a job interview. Such judgments depend on how people organize, search, and access the cognitive

One of biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental database access method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed data sets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image data sets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate distributed database search.

One of biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental database access method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed data sets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image data sets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate distributed database search.

The differentiating characteristics of text versus images and their impact on large medical image databases intended to allow content-based indexing and retrieval have recently been explored. For the design of powerful user interfaces, we propose a grouping of the various mechanisms into four classes: (i) output modules, (ii) parameter modules, (iii) transaction modules, and (iv) process modules, all of which being controlled by a detailed query logging. Relevance feedback by the physician loops the input, search, and output sequence and is commonly accepted to be most effective for query refinement. Our modular concept provides two additional loops of interaction. Based on the detailed logging of user interaction, an inner loop allows to step back to any previous answer that was given by the system during the interactive session. Boolean linkage of successive queries is provided by an outer loop. Nonetheless, the entire data flow is still controlled within a single web page by means of simple decision rules that are implemented only using push buttons, which can be handled most easily. Our approach is exemplified by means of an application for content-basedaccess to medical images of similar modality, orientation, and body region using global features that model gray scale, texture, structure and global shape characteristics. The three nested loops for interaction provide a maximum of flexibility within a minimum of complexity. The resulting extended query refinement has a significant impact for content-based retrieval in medical applications (IRMA).

Background The number of visits to hospital emergency departments (EDs) in England has increased by 20% since 2007-08, placing unsustainable pressure on the National Health Service (NHS). Some patients attend EDs because they are unable to access primary care services. This study examined the association between access to primary care and ED visits in England. Methods A cross-sectional, population-based analysis of patients registered with 7,856 general practices in England was conducted, for the time period April 2010 to March 2011. The outcome measure was the number of self-referred discharged ED visits by the registered population of a general practice. The predictor variables were measures of patient-reported access to general practice services; these were entered into a negative binomial regression model with variables to control for the characteristics of patient populations, supply of general practitioners and travel times to health services. Main Result and Conclusion General practices providing more timely access to primary care had fewer self-referred discharged ED visits per registered patient (for the most accessible quintile of practices, RR = 0.898; P<0.001). Policy makers should consider improving timely access to primary care when developing plans to reduce ED utilisation. PMID:23776694

Electronic, software-managed mechanisms using, for example, radio-frequency identification (RFID) cards, enable great flexibility in specifying accesscontrol policies to physical spaces. For example, access rights may vary based on time of day or could differ in normal versus emergency situations. With such fine-grained control, understanding and reasoning about what a policy permits becomes surprisingly difficult requiring knowledge of permission levels, spatial layout, and time. In this paper, we present a formal modeling framework, called AccessNets, suitable for describing a combination of access permissions, physical spaces, and temporal constraints. Furthermore, we provide evidence that model checking techniques are effective in reasoning about physical accesscontrol policies. We describe our results from a tool that uses reachability analysis to validate security policies.

Existing Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) robotic controllers rely on an inverse kinematic model to convert user-specified cartesian trajectory coordinates to joint variables. These joints experience friction, stiction, and gear backlash effects. Due to lack of proper linearization of these effects, modern control theory based on state space methods cannot provide adequate control for robotic systems. In the presence of loads, the dynamic behavior of robotic systems is complex and nonlinear, especially where mathematical modeling is evaluated for real-time operators. Fuzzy Logic Control is a fast emerging alternative to conventional control systems in situations where it may not be feasible to formulate an analytical model of the complex system. Fuzzy logic techniques track a user-defined trajectory without having the host computer to explicitly solve the nonlinear inverse kinematic equations. The goal is to provide a rule-based approach, which is closer to human reasoning. The approach used expresses end-point error, location of manipulator joints, and proximity to obstacles as fuzzy variables. The resulting decisions are based upon linguistic and non-numerical information. This paper presents a solution to the conventional robot controller which is independent of computationally intensive kinematic equations. Computer simulation results of this approach as obtained from software implementation are also discussed.

The research investigates the problem raised by the rapid development in the technology industry giving security concerns in facilities built by the energy industry containing diverse platforms. The difficulty of continuous updates to network security architecture and assessment gave rise to the need to use threat intelligence frameworks to better assess and address networks security issues. Focusing on accesscontrol security to the ICS and SCADA systems that is being utilized to carry out mission critical and life threatening operations. The research evaluates different threat intelligence frameworks that can be implemented in the industry seeking the most suitable and applicable one that address the issue and provide more security measures. The validity of the result is limited to the same environment that was researched as well as the technologies being utilized. The research concludes that it is possible to utilize a Threat Intelligence framework to prioritize security in AccessControl Measures in the Oil Industry.

The Internet of Things is one of the ideas that has become increasingly relevant in recent years. It involves connecting things to the Internet in order to retrieve information from them at any time and from anywhere. In the Internet of Things, sensor networks that exchange information wirelessly via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee or RF are common. In this sense, our paper presents a way in which each classroom control is accessed through Near Field Communication (NFC) and the information is shared via radio frequency. These data are published on the Web and could easily be used for building applications from the data collected. As a result, our application collects information from the classroom to create a control classroom tool that displays access to and the status of all the classrooms graphically and also connects this data with social networks.

The Internet of Things is one of the ideas that has become increasingly relevant in recent years. It involves connecting things to the Internet in order to retrieve information from them at any time and from anywhere. In the Internet of Things, sensor networks that exchange information wirelessly via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee or RF are common. In this sense, our paper presents a way in which each classroom control is accessed through Near Field Communication (NFC) and the information is shared via radio frequency. These data are published on the Web and could easily be used for building applications from the data collected. As a result, our application collects information from the classroom to create a control classroom tool that displays access to and the status of all the classrooms graphically and also connects this data with social networks. PMID:24755520

This article presents the findings from a study of controlledaccess headings assigned to encoded archival description finding aids in the Ohio Library and Information Network Finding Aid Repository, focusing on the number of headings per finding aid and the category of terms assigned. Assigning multiple controlledaccess headings was widely…

Several approaches for an attitude control system are studied and developed for a large space construction base that is structurally flexible. Digital simulations were obtained using the following techniques: (1) the multivariable Nyquist array method combined with closed loop pole allocation, (2) the linear quadratic regulator method. Equations for the three-axis simulation using the multilevel control method were generated and are presented. Several alternate control approaches are also described. A technique is demonstrated for obtaining the dynamic structural properties of a vehicle which is constructed of two or more submodules of known dynamic characteristics.

Little is known about vascular access conversion and outcomes for patients starting hemodialysis with nonfunctional arteriovenous (AV) access. We assessed mortality risk associated with nonfunctional AV access at hemodialysis initiation, taking subsequent changes in vascular access into account. We studied the 53,092 incident adult hemodialysis patients included in the French REIN registry from 2005 through 2012. AV access placed predialysis was considered nonfunctional when dialysis began with a central venous catheter. Information about vascular access changes was obtained from treatment modality updates. At hemodialysis initiation, AV access was functional for 47% of patients and nonfunctional for 9%; 44% had a catheter alone. After a 3-year follow-up, 63% of patients beginning hemodialysis with a nonfunctional AV access had changed to a functional one, 4% had had a transplant, 19% had died before any vascular access change, and 13% still used a catheter. Cox proportional hazard models with vascular access treated as a time-dependent variable showed an adjusted mortality hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) for patients with nonfunctional AV access who subsequently converted to functional access of 0.95 (95% CI 0.89-1.03) compared with the reference group with functional AV access since first hemodialysis, versus 1.43 (95% CI 1.31-1.55) for those who did not convert. Among patients starting hemodialysis with a nonfunctional AV access, a substantial percentage may never experience successful vascular access conversion. Poor survival seems to be limited to these patients, while those who subsequently convert to functional AV access have similar mortality risk compared to patients with such access since hemodialysis initiation. Every effort should be made to obtain functional AV access in all suitable patients.

It is commonly assumed that Hispanic immigrants in the United States subscribe to a patriarchal ideology that keeps women subordinated to men, often through violence and exploitative reproductive behaviors. If this assumption is true, we might expect to find that in the Hispanic culture patriarchal males control decision-making about access to and use of birth control. Structured interviews of 100 Hispanic men and 100 Hispanic women who were recent immigrants to a Midwest community were conducted to examine this assumption. Results did not support this assumption among this study population. We found no patriarchal ideology supporting women's subordination to men, violence as a mechanism of control, reproduction as a way of exploitation, or cultural influences discouraging access to and use of birth control in the Hispanic community. Rather, these immigrants revealed adequate knowledge of birth control use and positive perceptions of gender equality. Gaining a better understanding of the limited influence of patriarchal ideology on the use of birth control and family planning services among this Hispanic community may inform the development of family planning services tailored for new Hispanic immigrants.

Denmark has a health care system with free and equal access to care irrespective of age and socio-economic status (SES). We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate a possible association between SES and blood pressure (BP) control of hypertensive patients treated in general practice. We enrolled 184 general practices and 5260 hypertensive patients. The general practitioners reported information about BP and diagnosis of diabetes. Information about education, income, antihypertensive drug treatment and other co-morbidity was retrieved from relevant registers from Statistics Denmark. The outcome measure was BP control defined as BP <140/90 mmHg in general and <130/80 mmHg in diabetics. Patients <65 years and with an educational level of 10-12 years had increased odds ratio (OR) of BP control compared to patients with an educational level <10 years. Patients ≥65 years had increased OR of BP control if they were married/cohabiting as compared to being single, whereas education and income had no impact in this age group. Diabetics had significantly reduced odds of BP control irrespective of age, educational or income level. Despite equal access to care for all patients, SES had significant impact on BP control in this survey. Diabetes and cardiovascular disease also had a substantial influence irrespective of age, educational and income level.

Garlic is a spice and a medicinal plant; hence, there is an increasing interest in 'developing' new varieties with different culinary properties or with high content of nutraceutical compounds. Phenotypic traits and dominant molecular markers are predominantly used to evaluate the genetic diversity of garlic clones. However, 24 SSR markers (codominant) specific for garlic are available in the literature, fostering germplasm researches. In this study, we genotyped 130 garlic accessions from Brazil and abroad using 17 polymorphic SSR markers to assess the genetic diversity and structure. This is the first attempt to evaluate a large set of accessions maintained by Brazilian institutions. A high level of redundancy was detected in the collection (50 % of the accessions represented eight haplotypes). However, non-redundant accessions presented high genetic diversity. We detected on average five alleles per locus, Shannon index of 1.2, HO of 0.5, and HE of 0.6. A core collection was set with 17 accessions, covering 100 % of the alleles with minimum redundancy. Overall FST and D values indicate a strong genetic structure within accessions. Two major groups identified by both model-based (Bayesian approach) and hierarchical clustering (UPGMA dendrogram) techniques were coherent with the classification of accessions according to maturity time (growth cycle): early-late and midseason accessions. Assessing genetic diversity and structure of garlic collections is the first step towards an efficient management and conservation of accessions in genebanks, as well as to advance future genetic studies and improvement of garlic worldwide.

A line by line description is given of sessions using the set-theoretic data system (STDS) to interact with technical data bases. The data bases contain data from actual applications at NASA Langley Research Center. The report is meant to be a tutorial document that accompanies set processing in a network environment.

This paper proposed a low-complexity medium accesscontrol (MAC) protocol tailored for body sensor networks (BSN) applications. The MAC protocol was designated to handle collision avoidance by reducing the numbers of the overhead packets for handshake control within the BSN. We also suggested a novel message recovery mechanism for getting back the lost physiological information. The adaptive synchronization scheme we have implemented exploited the features of multiple data-rate and adjustable precision design to support differentiated healthcare applications. The MAC protocol was fully implemented using our BSN development platform. The experimental results suggested the improved MAC design was compact and energy-efficient.

In this paper, we propose a layered multicast encryption scheme that provides flexible accesscontrol to motion JPEG2000 code streams. JPEG2000 generates layered code streams and offers flexible scalability in characteristics such as resolution and SNR. The layered multicast encryption proposal allows a sender to multicast the encrypted JPEG2000 code streams such that only designated groups of users can decrypt the layered code streams. While keeping the layering functionality, the proposed method offers useful properties such as 1) video quality control using only one private key, 2) guaranteed security, and 3) low computational complexity comparable to conventional non-layered encryption. Simulation results show the usefulness of the proposed method.

The successful dissemination of the results of the National Health Service (NHS) research and development strategy and the development of evidence based approaches to health care rely on clinicians having access to the best available evidence; evidence fit for the purpose of reducing the uncertainties associated with clinical decisions. To reveal the accessibility of those sources of information actually used by nurses, as well as those which they say they use. Mixed method case site, using interview, observational, Q sort and documentary audit data in medical, surgical and coronary care units (CCUs) in three acute hospitals. Three perspectives on accessibility were identified: (a) the humanist--in which human sources of information were the most accessible; (b) local information for local needs--in which locally produced resources were seen as the most accessible and (c) moving towards technology--in which information technology begins to be seen as accessible. Nurses' experience in a clinical specialty is positively associated with a perception that human sources such as clinical nurse specialists, link nurses, doctors and experienced clinical colleagues are more accessible than text based sources. Clinical specialization is associated with different approaches to accessing research knowledge. Coronary care unit nurses were more likely to perceive local guidelines, protocols and on-line databases as more accessible than their counterparts in general medical and surgical wards. Only a third of text-based resources available to nurses on the wards had any explicit research base. These, and the remainder were out of date (mean age of textbooks 11 years), and authorship hard to ascertain. A strategy to increase the use of research evidence by nurses should harness the influence of clinical nurse specialists, link nurses and those engaged in practice development. These roles could act as 'conduits' through which research-based messages for practice, and information

Patients relying on central venous access devices (CVADs) for treatment are frequently complex. Many have multiple comorbid conditions, including renal impairment, nutritional deficiencies, hematologic disorders, or cancer. These conditions can impair the skin surrounding the CVAD insertion site, resulting in an increased likelihood of skin damage when standard CVAD management practices are employed. Supported by the World Congress of Vascular Access (WoCoVA), developed an evidence- and consensus-based algorithm to improve CVAD-associated skin impairment (CASI) identification and diagnosis, guide clinical decision-making, and improve clinician confidence in managing CASI. A scoping review of relevant literature surrounding CASI management was undertaken March 2014, and results were distributed to an international advisory panel. A CASI algorithm was developed by an international advisory panel of clinicians with expertise in wounds, vascular access, pediatrics, geriatric care, home care, intensive care, infection control and acute care, using a 2-phase, modified Delphi technique. The algorithm focuses on identification and treatment of skin injury, exit site infection, noninfectious exudate, and skin irritation/contact dermatitis. It comprised 3 domains: assessment, skin protection, and patient comfort. External validation of the algorithm was achieved by prospective pre- and posttest design, using clinical scenarios and self-reported clinician confidence (Likert scale), and incorporating algorithm feasibility and face validity endpoints. The CASI algorithm was found to significantly increase participants' confidence in the assessment and management of skin injury (P = .002), skin irritation/contact dermatitis (P = .001), and noninfectious exudate (P < .01). A majority of participants reported the algorithm as easy to understand (24/25; 96%), containing all necessary information (24/25; 96%). Twenty-four of 25 (96%) stated that they would recommend the tool to

A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) is the heavy-ion detector designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The online Data Quality Monitoring (DQM) plays an essential role in the experiment operation by providing shifters with immediate feedback on the data being recorded in order to quickly identify and overcome problems. An immediate access to the DQM results is needed not only by shifters in the control room but also by detector experts worldwide. As a consequence, a new web application has been developed to dynamically display and manipulate the ROOT-based objects produced by the DQM system in a flexible and user friendly interface. The architecture and design of the tool, its main features and the technologies that were used, both on the server and the client side, are described. In particular, we detail how we took advantage of the most recent ROOT JavaScript I/O and web server library to give interactive access to ROOT objects stored in a database. We describe as well the use of modern web techniques and packages such as AJAX, DHTMLX and jQuery, which has been instrumental in the successful implementation of a reactive and efficient application. We finally present the resulting application and how code quality was ensured. We conclude with a roadmap for future technical and functional developments.

The rising popularity of various social networking websites has created a huge problem on Internet privacy. Although it is easy to post photos, comments, opinions on some events, etc. on the Web, some of these data (such as a person’s location at a particular time, criticisms of a politician, etc.) are private and should not be accessed by unauthorized users. Although social networks facilitate sharing, the fear of sending sensitive data to a third party without knowledge or permission of the data owners discourages people from taking full advantage of some social networking applications. We exploit the existing relationships on social networks and build a ‘‘trust network’’ with transitive relationship to allow controlled data sharing so that the privacy and preferences of data owners are respected. The trust network linking private data owners, private data requesters, and intermediary users is a directed weighted graph. The permission value for each private data requester can be automatically assigned in this network based on the transitive relationship. Experiments were conducted to confirm the feasibility of constructing the trust network from existing social networks, and to assess the validity of permission value assignments in the query process. Since the data owners only need to define the access rights of their closest contacts once, this privacy scheme can make private data sharing easily manageable by social network participants.

The aim of this study was to analyse high blood pressure detection, management, control and associated factors among residents accessing community health services (CHSs) in Beijing. We screened for HBP in 9524 individuals aged 50 years or older who accessed care in four Beijing CHSs. Among the 9397 residents with questionnaire responses that qualified them for inclusion in the study, 5029 patients with HBP were identified, 1510 (i.e., 30% of the HBP patient group) of whom were newly identified cases. The rate of hypertension detection was 53.5%. Among the 5029 HBP patients, the rates of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were 70.0%, 62.1% and 29.6%, respectively. In general, the rate of hypertension control was higher when the rates of hypertension awareness and treatment were higher in subgroups stratified by different sociodemographic and risk factors, except for the overweight and obesity subgroups. In conclusion, suboptimal HBP awareness, treatment, and control are still major problems confronting CHSs in Beijing. Control of hypertension in the population may be improved by increasing awareness and improving the treatment of hypertension in CHSs. PMID:24784167

The aim of this study was to analyse high blood pressure detection, management, control and associated factors among residents accessing community health services (CHSs) in Beijing. We screened for HBP in 9524 individuals aged 50 years or older who accessed care in four Beijing CHSs. Among the 9397 residents with questionnaire responses that qualified them for inclusion in the study, 5029 patients with HBP were identified, 1510 (i.e., 30% of the HBP patient group) of whom were newly identified cases. The rate of hypertension detection was 53.5%. Among the 5029 HBP patients, the rates of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were 70.0%, 62.1% and 29.6%, respectively. In general, the rate of hypertension control was higher when the rates of hypertension awareness and treatment were higher in subgroups stratified by different sociodemographic and risk factors, except for the overweight and obesity subgroups. In conclusion, suboptimal HBP awareness, treatment, and control are still major problems confronting CHSs in Beijing. Control of hypertension in the population may be improved by increasing awareness and improving the treatment of hypertension in CHSs.

Empirical evidence suggests that while people hold the capacity to control their data in high regard, they increasingly experience a loss of control over their data in the online world. The capacity to exert control over the generation and flow of personal information is a fundamental premise to important values such as autonomy, privacy, and trust. In healthcare and clinical research this capacity is generally achieved indirectly, by agreeing to specific conditions of informational exposure. Such conditions can be openly stated in informed consent documents or be implicit in the norms of confidentiality that govern the relationships of patients and healthcare professionals. However, with medicine becoming a data-intense enterprise, informed consent and medical confidentiality, as mechanisms of control, are put under pressure. In this paper we explore emerging models of informational control in data-intense healthcare and clinical research, which can compensate for the limitations of currently available instruments. More specifically, we discuss three approaches that hold promise in increasing individual control: the emergence of data portability rights as means to control data access, new mechanisms of informed consent as tools to control data use, and finally, new participatory governance schemes that allow individuals to control their data through direct involvement in data governance. We conclude by suggesting that, despite the impression that biomedical big data diminish individual control, the synergistic effect of new data management models can in fact improve it.

Background After many years of general neglect, interest has grown and efforts came under way for the mapping, control, surveillance, and eventual elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Disease risk estimates are a key feature to target control interventions, and serve as a benchmark for monitoring and evaluation. What is currently missing is a georeferenced global database for NTDs providing open-access to the available survey data that is constantly updated and can be utilized by researchers and disease control managers to support other relevant stakeholders. We describe the steps taken toward the development of such a database that can be employed for spatial disease risk modeling and control of NTDs. Methodology With an emphasis on schistosomiasis in Africa, we systematically searched the literature (peer-reviewed journals and ‘grey literature’), contacted Ministries of Health and research institutions in schistosomiasis-endemic countries for location-specific prevalence data and survey details (e.g., study population, year of survey and diagnostic techniques). The data were extracted, georeferenced, and stored in a MySQL database with a web interface allowing free database access and data management. Principal Findings At the beginning of 2011, our database contained more than 12,000 georeferenced schistosomiasis survey locations from 35 African countries available under http://www.gntd.org. Currently, the database is expanded to a global repository, including a host of other NTDs, e.g. soil-transmitted helminthiasis and leishmaniasis. Conclusions An open-access, spatially explicit NTD database offers unique opportunities for disease risk modeling, targeting control interventions, disease monitoring, and surveillance. Moreover, it allows for detailed geostatistical analyses of disease distribution in space and time. With an initial focus on schistosomiasis in Africa, we demonstrate the proof-of-concept that the establishment and running of a

Preemptive correction of a stenosis in an arteriovenous (AV) access (fistula or graft) that is adequately providing hemodialysis (functional AV access) may prolong access survival as compared to waiting for signs of access dysfunction to intervene (deferred salvage). However, the evidence in support of preemptive intervention is controversial. We evaluated benefits and harms of preemptive versus deferred correction of AV access stenosis. Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Adults receiving hemodialysis by a functional AV access. We searched the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Specialised Register and EMBASE to October 15, 2015. Active access surveillance (flow measurement and Doppler or venous pressure) and preemptive correction of a newly identified stenosis versus routine clinical monitoring and deferred salvage, or preemptive correction of a known stenosis versus deferred salvage. Access loss (primary outcome) and thrombosis (overall and by access type), infection, mortality, hospitalization, and access-related procedures. We included 14 trials (1,390 participants; follow-up, 6-38 months). Relative to deferred salvage, preemptive correction of AV access stenosis had a nonsignificant effect on risk for access loss (risk ratio [RR], 0.81; 95% CI, 0.65-1.02; I(2)=0%) and a significant effect on risk for thrombosis (RR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.65-0.97; I(2)=30%). Treatment effects were larger in fistulas than in grafts for both risk for access loss (subgroup difference, P=0.05) and risk for thrombosis (subgroup difference, P=0.002). Results were heterogeneous or imprecise for mortality, rates of access-related infections or procedures, and hospitalization. Small number and size of primary studies limited analysis power. Preemptive stenosis correction in a functional AV access does not improve access longevity. Although preemptive stenosis correction may be promising in fistulas, existing evidence is insufficient to guide clinical practice and

Wireless power transfer (WPT) has become a common way to charge or power many types of devices, ranging from cell phones to electric toothbrushes. WPT became popular through the introduction of a transmission mode known as strongly coupled magnetic resonance (SCMR). This means of transmission is non-radiative and enables mid-range WPT. Shortly after the development of WPT via SCMR, a group of researchers introduced the concept of resonant repeaters, which allows power to hop from the source to the device. These repeaters are in resonance with the WPT system, which enables them to propagate the power wirelessly with minimal losses to the environment. Resonant repeaters have rekindled the dream of ubiquitous wireless power. Inherent risks come with the realization of such a dream. One of the most prominent risks, which we set out in this thesis to address, is that of accessibility to the WPT system. We propose the incorporation of a controlledaccess schema within a WPT system to prevent unwarranted use of wireless power. Our thesis discusses the history of electromagnetism, examines the inception of WPT via SCMR, evaluates recent developments in WPT, and further elaborates on the controlledaccess schema we wish to contribute to the field.

Recently, Chen et al. have proposed a novel tamper resistant prescription RFID accesscontrol system, published in the Journal of Medical Systems. In this paper we consider the security of the proposed protocol and identify some existing weaknesses. The main attack is a reader impersonation attack which allows an active adversary to impersonate a legitimate doctor, e.g. the patient's doctor, to access the patient's tag and change the patient prescription. The presented attack is quite efficient. To impersonate a doctor, the adversary should eavesdrop one session between the doctor and the patient's tag and then she can impersonate the doctor with the success probability of '1'. In addition, we present efficient reader-tag to back-end database impersonation, de-synchronization and traceability attacks against the protocol. Finally, we propose an improved version of protocol which is more efficient compared to the original protocol while provides the desired security against the presented attacks.

Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness. Reduction of intraocular pressure is the only proven way to prevent progression of glaucomatous optic neuropathy. The majority of glaucoma patients need to use antiglaucoma ophthalmic solutions over the course of their life. Thus, good adherence and persistency of glaucoma treatment are important factors for better glaucoma care. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of an Internet-based glaucoma care support system on glaucoma medication use. Patients were randomly divided into two groups. The non-Internet access (NIA) group consisted of patients who had access to the Internet-based glaucoma care support system during the 4-year period only when they were examined by ophthalmologists. The Internet access (IA) group consisted of patients who had the same Internet-based glaucoma care support system access as the NIA group for the first 2 years following enrollment but who were also given free access to the glaucoma care support system for the remaining 2 years. Changes in glaucoma medication use were investigated. In total, 81 patients in the IA group and 90 patients in the NIA group satisfied the study protocol. The number of antiglaucoma ophthalmic solutions used during the study period significantly increased in the NIA group (Paccess significantly shifted from an increasing intraocular pressure trend to a decreasing trend in the IA group (P=.002) among the patients who did not have any medication changes. Allowing patients to browse their medical data may reduce the use and improve the effectiveness of glaucoma medication. UMIN-CTR Clinical Trial Number

based on dynamic inversion with a non-linear control allocator, is used to linearize the vehicle dynamics over its flight envelope and assign control ...backstepping method. Assessment of the vehicle’s ability to recover from control failures is conducted in this work for a nominal re-entry flight . 15...on dynamic inversion with a non-linear control allocator, is used to linearize the vehicle dynamics over its flight envelope and assign control tasks

Determinants of nonfunctional arteriovenous (AV) access, including timing of AV access creation, have not been sufficiently described. We studied 29 945 patients who had predialysis AV access placement and were included in the French REIN registry from 2005 through 2013. AV access was considered nonfunctional when dialysis began with a catheter. We estimated crude and adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of nonfunctional versus functional AV access associated with case-mix, facility characteristics, and timing of AV access creation. Analyses were stratified by dialysis start condition (planned or as an emergency) and comorbidity profile. Overall, 18% patients had nonfunctional AV access at hemodialysis initiation. In the group with planned dialysis start, female gender (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.32–1.56), diabetes (OR 1.28, 95% CI 1.15–1.44), and a higher number of cardiovascular comorbidities (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.09–1.49, and 1.31, 1.05–1.64, for 3 and >3 cardiovascular comorbidities versus none, respectively) were independent predictors of nonfunctional AV access. A higher percentage of AV access creation at the region level was associated with a lower rate of nonfunctional AV access (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.98–0.99 per 1% increase). The odds of nonfunctional AV access decreased as time from creation to hemodialysis initiation increased up to 3 months in nondiabetic patients with fewer than 2 cardiovascular comorbidities and 6 months in patients with diabetes or 2 or more such comorbidities. In conclusion, both patient characteristics and clinical practices may play a role in successful AV access use at hemodialysis initiation. Adjusting the timing of AV access creation to patients’ comorbidity profiles may improve functional AV access rates. PMID:28749967

Determinants of nonfunctional arteriovenous (AV) access, including timing of AV access creation, have not been sufficiently described. We studied 29 945 patients who had predialysis AV access placement and were included in the French REIN registry from 2005 through 2013. AV access was considered nonfunctional when dialysis began with a catheter. We estimated crude and adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of nonfunctional versus functional AV access associated with case-mix, facility characteristics, and timing of AV access creation. Analyses were stratified by dialysis start condition (planned or as an emergency) and comorbidity profile. Overall, 18% patients had nonfunctional AV access at hemodialysis initiation. In the group with planned dialysis start, female gender (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.32-1.56), diabetes (OR 1.28, 95% CI 1.15-1.44), and a higher number of cardiovascular comorbidities (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.09-1.49, and 1.31, 1.05-1.64, for 3 and >3 cardiovascular comorbidities versus none, respectively) were independent predictors of nonfunctional AV access. A higher percentage of AV access creation at the region level was associated with a lower rate of nonfunctional AV access (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.98-0.99 per 1% increase). The odds of nonfunctional AV access decreased as time from creation to hemodialysis initiation increased up to 3 months in nondiabetic patients with fewer than 2 cardiovascular comorbidities and 6 months in patients with diabetes or 2 or more such comorbidities. In conclusion, both patient characteristics and clinical practices may play a role in successful AV access use at hemodialysis initiation. Adjusting the timing of AV access creation to patients' comorbidity profiles may improve functional AV access rates.

As communication and networking technologies advance, networks will become highly complex and heterogeneous, interconnecting different network domains. There is a need to provide user authentication and data protection in order to further facilitate critical mission operations, especially in the tactical and mission-critical net-centric networking environment. The Autonomous Information Unit (AIU) technology was designed to provide the fine-grain data access and user control in a net-centric system-testing environment to meet these objectives. The AIU is a fundamental capability designed to enable fine-grain data access and user control in the cross-domain networking environments, where an AIU is composed of the mission data, metadata, and policy. An AIU provides a mechanism to establish trust among deployed AIUs based on recombining shared secrets, authentication and verify users with a username, X.509 certificate, enclave information, and classification level. AIU achieves data protection through (1) splitting data into multiple information pieces using the Shamir's secret sharing algorithm, (2) encrypting each individual information piece using military-grade AES-256 encryption, and (3) randomizing the position of the encrypted data based on the unbiased and memory efficient in-place Fisher-Yates shuffle method. Therefore, it becomes virtually impossible for attackers to compromise data since attackers need to obtain all distributed information as well as the encryption key and the random seeds to properly arrange the data. In addition, since policy can be associated with data in the AIU, different user access and data control strategies can be included. The AIU technology can greatly enhance information assurance and security management in the bandwidth-limited and ad hoc net-centric environments. In addition, AIU technology can be applicable to general complex network domains and applications where distributed user authentication and data protection are

Background Genetic testing is increasingly used as a tool throughout the health care system. In 2011 the number of clinically available genetic tests is approaching 2,000, and wide variation exists between these tests in their sensitivity, specificity, and clinical implications, as well as the potential for discrimination based on the results. Discussion As health care systems increasingly implement electronic medical record systems (EMRs) they must carefully consider how to use information from this wide spectrum of genetic tests, with whom to share information, and how to provide decision support for clinicians to properly interpret the information. Although some characteristics of genetic tests overlap with other medical test results, there are reasons to make genetic test results widely available to health care providers and counterbalancing reasons to restrict access to these test results to honor patient preferences, and avoid distracting or confusing clinicians with irrelevant but complex information. Electronic medical records can facilitate and provide reasonable restrictions on access to genetic test results and deliver education and decision support tools to guide appropriate interpretation and use. Summary This paper will serve to review some of the key characteristics of genetic tests as they relate to design of accesscontrol and decision support of genetic test information in the EMR, emphasizing the clear need for health information technology (HIT) to be part of optimal implementation of genetic medicine, and the importance of understanding key characteristics of genetic tests when designing HIT applications. PMID:22047175

A recent trend is observed in the context of the radio-controlled aircrafts and automobiles within the hobby grade category and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) applications moving to the well-known Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. Based on this technological fact, the present thesis evaluates an individual user performance by featuring a multiple-user scenario where several point-to-point co-located real-time Remote Control (RC) applications operate using Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) as a medium access technique in order to handle interference efficiently. Commercial-off-the-shelf wireless transceivers ready to operate in the ISM band are considered as the operational platform supporting the above-mentioned applications. The impact of channel impairments and of different critical system engineering issues, such as working with real clock oscillators and variable packet duty cycle, are considered. Based on the previous, simulation results allowed us to evaluate the range of variation for those parameters for an acceptable system performance under Multiple Access (MA) environments.

Many ontologies have been developed in biology and these ontologies increasingly contain large volumes of formalized knowledge commonly expressed in the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Computational access to the knowledge contained within these ontologies relies on the use of automated reasoning. We have developed the Aber-OWL infrastructure that provides reasoning services for bio-ontologies. Aber-OWL consists of an ontology repository, a set of web services and web interfaces that enable ontology-based semantic access to biological data and literature. Aber-OWL is freely available at http://aber-owl.net . Aber-OWL provides a framework for automatically accessing information that is annotated with ontologies or contains terms used to label classes in ontologies. When using Aber-OWL, access to ontologies and data annotated with them is not merely based on class names or identifiers but rather on the knowledge the ontologies contain and the inferences that can be drawn from it.

RFID - based Staff Control System (SCS) will allow complete hands-free accesscontrol, monitoring the whereabouts of employee and record the attendance of the employee as well. Moreover, with a help of this system, it is possible to have a nice report at the end of the month and based on the total number of worked hours, the salary will be allocated to each personnel. The access tag can be read up to 10 centimeters from the RFID reader. The proposed system is based on UHF RFID readers, supported with antennas at gate and transaction sections, and employee identification cards containing RFID-transponders which are able to electronically store information that can be read / written even without the physical contact with the help of radio medium. This system is an innovative system, which describes the benefits of applying RFID- technology in the Education System process of Republic of Kazakhstan. This paper presents the experiments conducted to set up RFID based SCS.

An image stabilization system is commonly used on astronomical telescopes to compensate for poor mount performance, low-order effects from atmospheric seeing and local index of refraction instabilities near the telescope. An image stabilizer is comprised of an electro-optical component and a sensor that are used in concert to lock the position of a wavefront or image centroid onto a camera. There are several commercial tip-tilt and sensing systems and components that can be used for image stabilization depending on the user's performance and cost requirements. We report on an inexpensive image stabilizer for use on astronomical telescopes developed as part of the NSF funded (AST-00-96741) UnISIS laser guide-star project at the Mount Wilson Observatory. The instrument uses inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components for beam steering, position sensing and the processor/control system. The limiting magnitude of the system depends on the properties of the light sensor used. The image stabilizer operates as a turnkey system with 2 main control modes to provide different performance capabilities for different operating conditions. The normal mode uses a proportional, integrating, differentiating (PID) controller and the second mode uses a more complex fuzzy logic basedcontrol scheme. We have examined other control methods and continue to experiment with different schemes. The simplicity of the system allows for many different control models to be implemented and evaluated in the laboratory and on the telescope. This flexibility and low cost provides an inexpensive system that can be used for both image stabilization and monitoring of the astronomical seeing at an observing site. Such systems are also invaluable for introducing astronomy students to instrumentation and engineering students to the innovative control aspects of telescope systems.

A single frequency communication system is considered consisting of K possibly moving users distributed in space simultaneously communicating with a central station equipped with a computationally adapted array of n = or K antennas. Such a configuration could result if K spacecraft were to be simultaneously tracked by a single DSN complex consisting of an n antennas array. The array employs K sets of n weights to segregate the signals received from the K users. The weights are determined by direct computation based on known position information of the K users. Currently known techniques require (for n = K) about (4/3)K to the 4th power computer operations (multiply and add) to perform such computations. A technique that accomplishes this same goal in 8 K to the 3rd power operations, yielding a reduction by a factor K/6, was developed.

Asia's tobacco control movement was strengthened owing to the need to fulfill the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The present study aims to assess the compliance rates of tobacco retailers to the law forbidding the sales of tobacco to minors in Hong Kong before and after the growth of the tobacco control movement brought by the enactment of the newly amended tobacco control law with effect from 2007. The legislation was enacted to fulfill the FCTC. Two waves of territory-wide compliance checks conducted in 2006 and 2008 were compared. The compliance check was conducted using Standard Protocol. The overall compliance rate was still low though it increased from 18.9% in 2006 to 27.0% in 2008. The compliance rate of convenience stores and newspaper stands improved whereas the rate for restaurants, grocery stores and petrol stations worsened. Less tobacco retailing outlets displayed a specified warning sign required in 2008 (33.7%) comparing to 2006 (41.4%). The indoor smoking ban of the FCTC unintentionally changed the cigarette retailing landscape and finally improved the compliance rate. The case study also demonstrated that the Asia region still has much room for improvement in fulfilling the FCTC in term of effective implementation and enforcement. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Declustering techniques are widely used in distributed environments to reduce query response time through parallel I/O by splitting large files into several small blocks and then distributing those blocks among multiple storage nodes. Unfortunately, however, many small geospatial image data files cannot be further split for distributed storage. In this paper, we propose a complete theoretical system for the distributed storage of small geospatial image data files based on mining the access patterns of geospatial image data using their historical access log information. First, an algorithm is developed to construct an access correlation matrix based on the analysis of the log information, which reveals the patterns of access to the geospatial image data. Then, a practical heuristic algorithm is developed to determine a reasonable solution based on the access correlation matrix. Finally, a number of comparative experiments are presented, demonstrating that our algorithm displays a higher total parallel access probability than those of other algorithms by approximately 10-15% and that the performance can be further improved by more than 20% by simultaneously applying a copy storage strategy. These experiments show that the algorithm can be applied in distributed environments to help realize parallel I/O and thereby improve system performance.

Declustering techniques are widely used in distributed environments to reduce query response time through parallel I/O by splitting large files into several small blocks and then distributing those blocks among multiple storage nodes. Unfortunately, however, many small geospatial image data files cannot be further split for distributed storage. In this paper, we propose a complete theoretical system for the distributed storage of small geospatial image data files based on mining the access patterns of geospatial image data using their historical access log information. First, an algorithm is developed to construct an access correlation matrix based on the analysis of the log information, which reveals the patterns of access to the geospatial image data. Then, a practical heuristic algorithm is developed to determine a reasonable solution based on the access correlation matrix. Finally, a number of comparative experiments are presented, demonstrating that our algorithm displays a higher total parallel access probability than those of other algorithms by approximately 10–15% and that the performance can be further improved by more than 20% by simultaneously applying a copy storage strategy. These experiments show that the algorithm can be applied in distributed environments to help realize parallel I/O and thereby improve system performance. PMID:26181628

We report on the development and process control of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) for magnetic random access memory (MRAM) devices. It is demonstrated that MTJs with high magnetoresistance ˜40% at 300 mV, resistance-area product (RA) ˜1-3 kΩ μm2, low intrinsic interlayer coupling (Hin) ˜2-3 Oe, and excellent bit switching characteristics can be developed and fully integrated with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor circuitry into MRAM devices. MTJ uniformity and repeatability level suitable for mass production has been demonstrated with the advanced processing and monitoring techniques.

Background Inequalities in geographic access to health care result from the configuration of facilities, population distribution, and the transportation infrastructure. In recent accessibility studies, the traditional distance measure (Euclidean) has been replaced with more plausible measures such as travel distance or time. Both network and raster-based methods are often utilized for estimating travel time in a Geographic Information System. Therefore, exploring the differences in the underlying data models and associated methods and their impact on geographic accessibility estimates is warranted. Methods We examine the assumptions present in population-based travel time models. Conceptual and practical differences between raster and network data models are reviewed, along with methodological implications for service area estimates. Our case study investigates Limited Access Areas defined by Michigan’s Certificate of Need (CON) Program. Geographic accessibility is calculated by identifying the number of people residing more than 30 minutes from an acute care hospital. Both network and raster-based methods are implemented and their results are compared. We also examine sensitivity to changes in travel speed settings and population assignment. Results In both methods, the areas identified as having limited accessibility were similar in their location, configuration, and shape. However, the number of people identified as having limited accessibility varied substantially between methods. Over all permutations, the raster-based method identified more area and people with limited accessibility. The raster-based method was more sensitive to travel speed settings, while the network-based method was more sensitive to the specific population assignment method employed in Michigan. Conclusions Differences between the underlying data models help to explain the variation in results between raster and network-based methods. Considering that the choice of data model/method may

In orthogonal frequency division multiple accessbased passive optical network (OFDMA-PON) uplink, synchronization between optical network units (ONUs) is very important to maintain orthogonality. The synchronization among uplink signals is considered as one of the main challenges in OFDMA-PON due to optical path difference. In this paper, the performance degradation according to timing offset between ONUs is experimentally analyzed. And we propose and demonstrate timing offset effect reduction in asynchronous multiple access by using CP extension and filter bank based multicarrier (FBMC) system in intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) based OFDMA-PON uplink transmission.

Ongoing debates surrounding Open Access to the scholarly literature are multifaceted and complicated by disparate and often polarised viewpoints from engaged stakeholders. At the current stage, Open Access has become such a global issue that it is critical for all involved in scholarly publishing, including policymakers, publishers, research funders, governments, learned societies, librarians, and academic communities, to be well-informed on the history, benefits, and pitfalls of Open Access. In spite of this, there is a general lack of consensus regarding the potential pros and cons of Open Access at multiple levels. This review aims to be a resource for current knowledge on the impacts of Open Access by synthesizing important research in three major areas: academic, economic and societal. While there is clearly much scope for additional research, several key trends are identified, including a broad citation advantage for researchers who publish openly, as well as additional benefits to the non-academic dissemination of their work. The economic impact of Open Access is less well-understood, although it is clear that access to the research literature is key for innovative enterprises, and a range of governmental and non-governmental services. Furthermore, Open Access has the potential to save both publishers and research funders considerable amounts of financial resources, and can provide some economic benefits to traditionally subscription-based journals. The societal impact of Open Access is strong, in particular for advancing citizen science initiatives, and leveling the playing field for researchers in developing countries. Open Access supersedes all potential alternative modes of access to the scholarly literature through enabling unrestricted re-use, and long-term stability independent of financial constraints of traditional publishers that impede knowledge sharing. However, Open Access has the potential to become unsustainable for research communities if

Ongoing debates surrounding Open Access to the scholarly literature are multifaceted and complicated by disparate and often polarised viewpoints from engaged stakeholders. At the current stage, Open Access has become such a global issue that it is critical for all involved in scholarly publishing, including policymakers, publishers, research funders, governments, learned societies, librarians, and academic communities, to be well-informed on the history, benefits, and pitfalls of Open Access. In spite of this, there is a general lack of consensus regarding the potential pros and cons of Open Access at multiple levels. This review aims to be a resource for current knowledge on the impacts of Open Access by synthesizing important research in three major areas: academic, economic and societal. While there is clearly much scope for additional research, several key trends are identified, including a broad citation advantage for researchers who publish openly, as well as additional benefits to the non-academic dissemination of their work. The economic impact of Open Access is less well-understood, although it is clear that access to the research literature is key for innovative enterprises, and a range of governmental and non-governmental services. Furthermore, Open Access has the potential to save both publishers and research funders considerable amounts of financial resources, and can provide some economic benefits to traditionally subscription-based journals. The societal impact of Open Access is strong, in particular for advancing citizen science initiatives, and leveling the playing field for researchers in developing countries. Open Access supersedes all potential alternative modes of access to the scholarly literature through enabling unrestricted re-use, and long-term stability independent of financial constraints of traditional publishers that impede knowledge sharing. However, Open Access has the potential to become unsustainable for research communities if

This paper investigates the gain of inter-Node B macro diversity for a scheduled-based shared channel using single-carrier FDMA radio access in the Evolved UTRA (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) uplink based on system-level simulations. More specifically, we clarify the gain of inter-Node B soft handover (SHO) with selection combining at the radio frame length level (=10msec) compared to that for hard handover (HHO) for a scheduled-based shared data channel, considering the gains of key packet-specific techniques including channel-dependent scheduling, adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), hybrid automatic repeat request (ARQ) with packet combining, and slow transmission power control (TPC). Simulation results show that the inter-Node B SHO increases the user throughput at the cell edge by approximately 10% for a short cell radius such as 100-300m due to the diversity gain from a sudden change in other-cell interference, which is a feature specific to full scheduled-based packet access. However, it is also shown that the gain of inter-Node B SHO compared to that for HHO is small in a macrocell environment when the cell radius is longer than approximately 500m due to the gains from hybrid ARQ with packet combining, slow TPC, and proportional fairness based channel-dependent scheduling.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the various features and components of web-based online public access catalogues (OPACs) of IIT libraries in India with the help of a specially designed evaluation checklist. Design/methodology/approach: The various features of the web-based OPACs in six IIT libraries (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine the various features and components of web-based online public access catalogues (OPACs) of IIT libraries in India with the help of a specially designed evaluation checklist. Design/methodology/approach: The various features of the web-based OPACs in six IIT libraries (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT…

This article provides results from a qualitative study on the efforts of school-based mental health providers (SBMHPs) who serve students in urban, suburban, and ethnically diverse settings to help families access quality mental health services. School-based mental health plays a key role in the provision of direct and indirect intervention…

The paper examines the characteristics of area-based partnerships in rural Poland. It is based on the study of partnerships created after the accession to the European Union in 2004. Partnership structures have been rapidly adopted in rural Poland due to opportunities provided by the LEADER+ Pilot Programme. However, the research showed that…

Policy-based incentives for health care providers to adopt health information technology are predicated on the assumption that, among other things, electronic access to patient test results and medical records will reduce diagnostic testing and save money. To test the generalizability of findings that support this assumption, we analyzed the records of 28,741 patient visits to a nationally representative sample of 1,187 office-based physicians in 2008. Physicians' access to computerized imaging results (sometimes, but not necessarily, through an electronic health record) was associated with a 40-70 percent greater likelihood of an imaging test being ordered. The electronic availability of lab test results was also associated with ordering of additional blood tests. The availability of an electronic health record in itself had no apparent impact on ordering; the electronic access to test results appears to have been the key. These findings raise the possibility that, as currently implemented, electronic access does not decrease test ordering in the office setting and may even increase it, possibly because of system features that are enticements to ordering. We conclude that use of these health information technologies, whatever their other benefits, remains unproven as an effective cost-control strategy with respect to reducing the ordering of unnecessary tests.

We have developed an Erlang language implementation of the Channel Access protocol. Included are low-level functions for encoding and decoding Channel Access protocol network packets as well as higher level functions for monitoring or setting EPICS process variables. This provides access to EPICS process variables for the Fermilab Acnet control system via our Erlang-based front-end architecture without having to interface to C/C++ programs and libraries. Erlang is a functional programming language originally developed for real-time telecommunications applications. Its network programming features and list management functions make it particularly well-suited for the task of managing multiple Channel Access circuits and PV monitors.

RDF has become the standard technology for enabling interoperability among heterogeneous biomedical databases. The NCBI provides access to a large set of life sciences databases through a common interface called Entrez. However, the latter does not provide RDF-basedaccess to such databases, and, therefore, they cannot be integrated with other RDF-compliant databases and accessed via SPARQL query interfaces. This paper presents the NCBI2RDF system, aimed at providing RDF-basedaccess to the complete NCBI data repository. This API creates a virtual endpoint for servicing SPARQL queries over different NCBI repositories and presenting to users the query results in SPARQL results format, thus enabling this data to be integrated and/or stored with other RDF-compliant repositories. SPARQL queries are dynamically resolved, decomposed, and forwarded to the NCBI-provided E-utilities programmatic interface to access the NCBI data. Furthermore, we show how our approach increases the expressiveness of the native NCBI querying system, allowing several databases to be accessed simultaneously. This feature significantly boosts productivity when working with complex queries and saves time and effort to biomedical researchers. Our approach has been validated with a large number of SPARQL queries, thus proving its reliability and enhanced capabilities in biomedical environments. PMID:23984425

RDF has become the standard technology for enabling interoperability among heterogeneous biomedical databases. The NCBI provides access to a large set of life sciences databases through a common interface called Entrez. However, the latter does not provide RDF-basedaccess to such databases, and, therefore, they cannot be integrated with other RDF-compliant databases and accessed via SPARQL query interfaces. This paper presents the NCBI2RDF system, aimed at providing RDF-basedaccess to the complete NCBI data repository. This API creates a virtual endpoint for servicing SPARQL queries over different NCBI repositories and presenting to users the query results in SPARQL results format, thus enabling this data to be integrated and/or stored with other RDF-compliant repositories. SPARQL queries are dynamically resolved, decomposed, and forwarded to the NCBI-provided E-utilities programmatic interface to access the NCBI data. Furthermore, we show how our approach increases the expressiveness of the native NCBI querying system, allowing several databases to be accessed simultaneously. This feature significantly boosts productivity when working with complex queries and saves time and effort to biomedical researchers. Our approach has been validated with a large number of SPARQL queries, thus proving its reliability and enhanced capabilities in biomedical environments.

Introduction An estimated 750,000 Americans experience a stroke annually. Most stroke survivors require rehabilitation. Limited access to rehabilitation facilities has a pronounced burden on functional outcomes and quality of life. Robotic devices deliver reproducible therapy without the need for real-time human oversight. This study examined the efficacy of using home-based, telerobotic-assisted devices (Hand and Foot Mentor: HM and FM) to improve functional ability and reduce depression symptoms, while improving access and cost savings associated with rehabilitation. Methods Twenty stroke survivors performed three months of home-based rehabilitation using a robotic device, while a therapist remotely monitored progress. Baseline and end of treatment function and depression symptoms were assessed. Satisfaction with the device and access to therapy were determined using qualitative surveys. Cost analysis was performed to compare home-based, robotic-assisted therapy to clinic-based physical therapy. Results Compared to baseline, significant improvement in upper extremity function (30.06%, p= 0.046), clinically significant benefits in gait speed (29.03%), moderate improvement in depressive symptoms (28.44%) and modest improvement in distance walked (30.2%) were observed. Participants indicated satisfaction with the device. Home-based robot therapy expanded access to post-stroke rehabilitation for 35% of the people no longer receiving formal services and increased daily access for the remaining 65%, with a cost savings of $2,352 (64.97%) compared to clinic-based therapy. Conclusion Stroke survivors made significant clinically meaningful improvements in the use of their impaired extremities using a robotic device in the home. Home-based, robotic therapy reduced costs, while expanding access to a rehabilitation modality for people who would not otherwise have received care. PMID:28018979

Internet of Things is a ubiquitous concept where physical objects are connected over the internet and are provided with unique identifiers to enable their self-identification to other devices and the ability to continuously generate data and transmit it over a network. Hence, the security of the network, data and sensor devices is a paramount concern in the IoT network as it grows very fast in terms of exchanged data and interconnected sensor nodes. This paper analyses the authentication and accesscontrol method using in the Internet of Things presented by Jing et al (Authentication and AccessControl in the Internet of Things. In Proceedings of the 2012 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops, Macau, China, 18–21 June 2012, pp. 588–592). According to our analysis, Jing et al.'s protocol is costly in the message exchange and the security assessment is not strong enough for such a protocol. Therefore, we propose improvements to the protocol to fill the discovered weakness gaps. The protocol enhancements facilitate many services to the users such as user anonymity, mutual authentication, and secure session key establishment. Finally, the performance and security analysis show that the improved protocol possesses many advantages against popular attacks, and achieves better efficiency at low communication cost. PMID:25123464

NASA's Constellation Program (CxP) was developed to successfully return humans to the Lunar surface prior to 2020. The CxP included several different project offices including Altair, which was planned to be the next generation Lunar Lander. The Altair missions were architected to be quite different than the Lunar missions accomplished during the Apollo era. These differences resulted in a significantly dissimilar Thermal Control System (TCS) design. The current paper will summarize the Altair mission architecture and the various operational phases associated with the planned mission. In addition, the derived thermal requirements and the TCS designed to meet these unique and challenging thermal requirements will be presented. During the past year, the design team has focused on developing a vehicle architecture capable of accessing the entire Lunar surface. Due to the widely varying Lunar thermal environment, this global access requirement resulted in major changes to the thermal control system architecture. These changes, and the rationale behind the changes, will be detailed throughout the current paper.

Internet of Things is a ubiquitous concept where physical objects are connected over the internet and are provided with unique identifiers to enable their self-identification to other devices and the ability to continuously generate data and transmit it over a network. Hence, the security of the network, data and sensor devices is a paramount concern in the IoT network as it grows very fast in terms of exchanged data and interconnected sensor nodes. This paper analyses the authentication and accesscontrol method using in the Internet of Things presented by Jing et al. (Authentication and AccessControl in the Internet of Things. In Proceedings of the 2012 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops, Macau, China, 18-21 June 2012, pp. 588-592). According to our analysis, Jing et al.'s protocol is costly in the message exchange and the security assessment is not strong enough for such a protocol. Therefore, we propose improvements to the protocol to fill the discovered weakness gaps. The protocol enhancements facilitate many services to the users such as user anonymity, mutual authentication, and secure session key establishment. Finally, the performance and security analysis show that the improved protocol possesses many advantages against popular attacks, and achieves better efficiency at low communication cost.

Previous studies have measured individuals' willingness to share personal information stored in electronic health records (EHRs) with health care providers, but none has measured preferences among patients when they are allowed to determine the parameters of provider access. Patients were given the ability to controlaccess by doctors, nurses, and other staff in a primary care clinic to personal information stored in an EHR. Patients could restrict access to all personal data or to specific types of sensitive information, and could restrict access for a specific time period. Patients also completed a survey regarding their understanding of and opinions regarding the process. Of 139 eligible patients who were approached, 105 (75.5 %) were enrolled, and preferences were collected from all 105 (100 %). Sixty patients (57 %) did not restrict access for any providers. Of the 45 patients (43 %) who chose to limit the access of at least one provider, 36 restricted access only to all personal information in the EHR, while nine restricted access of some providers to a subset of the their personal information. Thirty-four (32.3 %) patients blocked access to all personal information by all doctors, nurses, and/or other staff, 26 (24.8 %) blocked access by all doctors and/or nurses, and five (4.8 %) denied access to all doctors, nurses, and staff. A significant minority of patients chose to restrict access by their primary care providers to personal information contained in an EHR, and few chose to restrict access to specific types of information. More research is needed to identify patient goals and understanding of the implications when facing decisions of this sort, and to identify the impact of patient education regarding information contained in EHRs and their use in the clinical care setting.

A member of the constellation of TDR satellites (TDRS) has experienced a failure of its prime earth sensor. Failure of the remaining earth sensor could result in the inability of the satellite to control its attitude and provide user services. Loss of the satellite would be a serious event. The multiple access (MA) antenna array on the TDRS has been proposed for use as a backup sensor for the attitude control system. This paper describes our analysis of the performance of the MA array as an interferometer used for accurate attitude determination. A least squares fit of a plane to the MA phase information appears to represent the TDRS body roll and pitch within about 0.1 deg. This is sufficient for SGL pointing and MA and SSA user services. Analytic improvements that include ionospheric correction may yield sufficient accuracy for KSA user services.

This paper presents an Energy Efficient Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocol for clustered wireless sensor networks that aims to improve energy efficiency and delay performance. The proposed protocol employs an adaptive cross-layer intra-cluster scheduling and an inter-cluster relay selection diversity. The scheduling is based on available data packets and remaining energy level of the source node (SN). This helps to minimize idle listening on nodes without data to transmit as well as reducing control packet overhead. The relay selection diversity is carried out between clusters, by the cluster head (CH), and the base station (BS). The diversity helps to improve network reliability and prolong the network lifetime. Relay selection is determined based on the communication distance, the remaining energy and the channel quality indicator (CQI) for the relay cluster head (RCH). An analytical framework for energy consumption and transmission delay for the proposed MAC protocol is presented in this work. The performance of the proposed MAC protocol is evaluated based on transmission delay, energy consumption, and network lifetime. The results obtained indicate that the proposed MAC protocol provides improved performance than traditional cluster based MAC protocols.

This paper presents an Energy Efficient Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocol for clustered wireless sensor networks that aims to improve energy efficiency and delay performance. The proposed protocol employs an adaptive cross-layer intra-cluster scheduling and an inter-cluster relay selection diversity. The scheduling is based on available data packets and remaining energy level of the source node (SN). This helps to minimize idle listening on nodes without data to transmit as well as reducing control packet overhead. The relay selection diversity is carried out between clusters, by the cluster head (CH), and the base station (BS). The diversity helps to improve network reliability and prolong the network lifetime. Relay selection is determined based on the communication distance, the remaining energy and the channel quality indicator (CQI) for the relay cluster head (RCH). An analytical framework for energy consumption and transmission delay for the proposed MAC protocol is presented in this work. The performance of the proposed MAC protocol is evaluated based on transmission delay, energy consumption, and network lifetime. The results obtained indicate that the proposed MAC protocol provides improved performance than traditional cluster based MAC protocols. PMID:26393608

In this review, we provide an overview of our work in resistive switching mechanisms on oxide-based resistance random access memory (RRAM) devices. Based on the investigation of physical and chemical mechanisms, we focus on its materials, device structures, and treatment methods so as to provide an in-depth perspective of state-of-the-art oxide-based RRAM. The critical voltage and constant reaction energy properties were found, which can be used to prospectively modulate voltage and operation time to control RRAM device working performance and forecast material composition. The quantized switching phenomena in RRAM devices were demonstrated at ultra-cryogenic temperature (4K), which is attributed to the atomic-level reaction in metallic filament. In the aspect of chemical mechanisms, we use the Coulomb Faraday theorem to investigate the chemical reaction equations of RRAM for the first time. We can clearly observe that the first-order reaction series is the basis for chemical reaction during reset process in the study. Furthermore, the activation energy of chemical reactions can be extracted by changing temperature during the reset process, from which the oxygen ion reaction process can be found in the RRAM device. As for its materials, silicon oxide is compatible to semiconductor fabrication lines. It is especially promising for the silicon oxide-doped metal technology to be introduced into the industry. Based on that, double-ended graphene oxide-doped silicon oxide based via-structure RRAM with filament self-aligning formation, and self-current limiting operation ability is demonstrated. The outstanding device characteristics are attributed to the oxidation and reduction of graphene oxide flakes formed during the sputter process. Besides, we have also adopted a new concept of supercritical CO2 fluid treatment to efficiently reduce the operation current of RRAM devices for portable electronic applications.

Infection is the most common cause of hospitalization and the second most common cause of mortality among hemodialysis (HD) patients, after cardiovascular disease. HD patients as well as the dialysis staff are vulnerable to contracting health-care-associated infections (HAIs) due to frequent and prolonged exposure to many possible contaminants in the dialysis environment. The extracorporeal nature of the therapy, the associated common environmental conditions and the immune compromised status of HD patients are major predisposing factors. The evident increased potential for transmission of infections in the HD settings led to the creation and implementation of specific and stricter infection prevention and control measures in addition to the usual standard precautions. Different international organizations have generated guidelines and recommendations on infection prevention and control for implementation in the HD settings. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Association of Professionals in Infection Control (APIC), the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI), the European Best Practice Guidelines/European Renal Best Practice (EBPG/ERBP) and the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO). However, these guidelines are extensive and sometimes vary among different guideline-producing bodies. Our aim in this review is to facilitate the access, increase the awareness and encourage implementation among dialysis providers by reviewing, extracting and comparing the essential elements of guidelines and recommendations on infection prevention and control in HD units.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of assuring medical-grade quality of service (QoS) for real-time medical applications in wireless healthcare systems based on IEEE 802.11e. Firstly, we show that the differentiated channel access of IEEE 802.11e cannot effectively assure medical-grade QoS because of priority inversion. To resolve this problem, we propose an efficient channel access algorithm. The proposed algorithm adjusts arbitrary inter-frame space (AIFS) in the IEEE 802.11e protocol depending on the QoS measurement of medical traffic, to provide differentiated near-absolute priority for medical traffic. In addition, based on rigorous capacity analysis, we propose an admission control scheme that can avoid performance degradation due to network overload. Via extensive simulations, we show that the proposed mechanism strictly assures the medical-grade QoS and improves the throughput of low-priority traffic by more than several times compared to the conventional IEEE 802.11e.

In this paper, we deal with the problem of assuring medical-grade quality of service (QoS) for real-time medical applications in wireless healthcare systems based on IEEE 802.11e. Firstly, we show that the differentiated channel access of IEEE 802.11e cannot effectively assure medical-grade QoS because of priority inversion. To resolve this problem, we propose an efficient channel access algorithm. The proposed algorithm adjusts arbitrary inter-frame space (AIFS) in the IEEE 802.11e protocol depending on the QoS measurement of medical traffic, to provide differentiated near-absolute priority for medical traffic. In addition, based on rigorous capacity analysis, we propose an admission control scheme that can avoid performance degradation due to network overload. Via extensive simulations, we show that the proposed mechanism strictly assures the medical-grade QoS and improves the throughput of low-priority traffic by more than several times compared to the conventional IEEE 802.11e. PMID:27490666

The image compression standard JPEG2000 brings not only powerful compression performance but also new functionality unavailable in previous standards (such as region of interest, scalability and random access to image data, through flexible code stream description of the image). ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1, which is the ISO Committee working group for JPEG2000 standardization is currently defining additional parts to the standard that will allow extended functionalities. One of these extensions is Part 8 JPSEC - JPEG2000 security, which deals with the protection and accesscontrol of JPEG2000 code-stream. This paper reports the JPSEC activities detailing with the three core experiments which are in progress to supply the JPEG2000 ISO Committee, with the appropriate protection technology. These core experiments are focusing on the protection of the code-stream itself and on the overall security infrastructure that is needed to manage the access rights of users and applications to that protected code-stream. Regarding the encryption/scrambling process, this one deals with the JPEG2000 code stream in such a way that only the packets, which contain image data information are encrypted. All the other code-stream data will be in clear mode. This paper will also advance details of one of the JPSEC proposed solutions for the security infrastructure - OpenSDRM (Open and Secure Digital Rights Management), which provides security and rights management from the content provider to the content final user. A use case where this security infrastructure was successfully used will also be provided.

The aim of this study was to evaluate, in a case control study, the esthetic and functional clinical performance of ceramic inlays used for covering the screw access hole in single monolithic lithium disilicate full-contour crowns bonded on computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) prefabricated titanium abutments in order to eliminate the drawbacks of alternative restorative methods. Twenty-eight patients with missing teeth in the lateral areas (premolars and molars) received screw-retained implant restorations. In half of the restorations (n = 14), composite fillings were used to seal the access hole (control group), while the other half was sealed with ceramic inlays (test group). To determine the restoration occlusal wear, impressions were obtained after the restorations were finalized, at 1 year, and at 2 years follow-up. The casts were scanned with a 3D Scanner Design System recording the anatomical surfaces of the white model replicates. Wear amounts (μm) were calculated as the maximum loss in height of the occlusal surface. The clinical evaluation was carried out using a kit specifically designed for assessing the FDI criteria. Statistics were performed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). A total of 58 restorations were delivered, and after 2 years of follow-up, the wear values were 228.20 ± 54.68 μm for the control group and 65.20 ± 7.24 μm for the ceramic inlay group. One-way ANOVA showed significant differences among the vertical loss between these two groups (P < .001). Clinical outcomes according to the FDI score for assessing dental restorations revealed substantial deterioration within 2 years of follow-up. The use of ceramic inlays appears to be a predictable, esthetic, and successful method of sealing the screw holes of the screw-retained implant restorations.

Despite surveillance, the Quebec Healthcare-Associated Infections Surveillance Program saw no improvement in vascular access-associated bloodstream infections in hemodialysis (HD). We aimed to determine the infection control measures recommended and implemented in Quebec's HD units, compliance of local protocols to infection control practice guidelines, and reasons behind the low prevalence of arteriovenous fistulas. An online survey was elaborated on the basis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Kidney Foundation Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative guidelines. The questionnaire was validated (construct, content, face validity, and reliability) and sent to all HD units in Quebec (n = 40). Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, linear regression, and Poisson regression. Thirty-seven (93%) of 40 HD units participated. Thirty (94%) of the 32 centers where central catheters are inserted have written insertion protocols. Compliance with practice guidelines is good, except for full-body draping during catheter insertion (79%) and ointment use at insertion site (3%). Prevention measures for catheter maintenance are in accordance with guidelines, except for skin disinfection with at least 0.5% chlorhexidine and 70% alcohol (67% compliance) and regular antiseptic ointment use at the insertion site (3%). Before fistula cannulation, skin preparation is suboptimal; forearm hygiene is performed in only 61% of cases. Several factors explain the low rate of fistulas, including patient preference (69%) and lack of surgical resources (39%; P = .01). Improvement in standardization of care according to practice guidelines is necessary. Fistula rate could be increased by improving access to surgical resources and patient education. Strategies are now being elaborated to address these findings.

Abundant data on compound bioactivity and publicly accessible chemical databases increase opportunities for ligand-based drug discovery. In order to make full use of the data, an online platform for ligand-based virtual screening (LBVS) using publicly accessible databases has been developed. LBVS adopts Bayesian learning approach to create virtual screening models because of its noise tolerance, speed, and efficiency in extracting knowledge from data. LBVS currently includes data derived from BindingDB and ChEMBL. Three validation approaches have been employed to evaluate the virtual screening models created from LBVS. The tenfold cross validation results of twenty different LBVS models demonstrate that LBVS achieves an average AUC value of 0.86. Our internal and external testing results indicate that LBVS is predictive for lead identifications. LBVS can be publicly accessed at http://rcdd.sysu.edu.cn/lbvs.

To be processed within a healthgrid environment, medical data goes through a complete lifecycle and several stages until it is finally used for the primary reason it has been collected for. This stage is not always the final occurrence of when the data would have been manipulated. The data could rather continue to be needed for secondary purposes of legitimate or non legitimate nature. Although other privacy issues are related to the processing of patient data while it is residing on a healthgrid environment, the control of data disclosure is our primary interest. When sharing medical data between different Healthcare and biomedical research organizations in Europe, it is important that the different parties involved in the sharing handle the data in the same way indicated by the legislation of the member state where the data was originally collected as the requirements might differ from one state to another. Privacy requirements, such as patient consent, may be subject to conflicting conditions between different national frameworks as well as between different legal and ethical frameworks within a single member state. These circumstances have made the compliance management process in European healthgrid very challenging. In this paper we are presenting an approach to tackle these issues by relying on several technologies contained in the semantic web stack. Our work suggests a direct mapping from high level legislation on privacy and data protection to operational level privacy aware controls. Additionally we suggest an architecture for the enforcement of these controls on accesscontrol models adopted by healthgrids security infrastructures.

five years in an attempt to negate US military technological advantages and the ability to operate east of the first island chain. These included...Collaboration to Address Anti-Access and Area Denial Challenges (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2013), 4. 13 The First Island Chain is a line of... islands from Japan, Kuril Islands , Ryukyu Islands , Thailand, Borneo, the Philippines and the Malay Peninsula. Defeating Anti-Access/Area Denial

We have mapped quantitative trait loci (QTL) responsible for natural variation in light and hormone response between the Cape Verde Islands (Cvi) and Landsberg erecta (Ler) accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana using recombinant inbred lines (RILs). Hypocotyl length was measured in four light environments: white, blue, red, and far-red light and in the dark. In addition, white light plus gibberellin (GA) and dark plus the brassinosteroid biosynthesis inhibitor brassinazole (BRZ) were used to detect hormone effects. Twelve QTL were identified that map to loci not previously known to affect light response, as well as loci where candidate genes have been identified from known mutations. Some QTL act in all environments while others show genotype-by-environment interaction. A global threshold was established to identify a significant epistatic interaction between two loci that have few main effects of their own. LIGHT1, a major QTL, has been confirmed in a near isogenic line (NIL) and maps to a new locus with effects in all light environments. The erecta mutation can explain the effect of the HYP2 QTL in the blue, BRZ, and dark environments, but not in far-red. LIGHT2, also confirmed in an NIL, has effects in white and red light and shows interaction with GA. The phenotype and map position of LIGHT2 suggest the photoreceptor PHYB as a candidate gene. Natural variation in light and hormone response thus defines both new genes and known genes that control light response in wild accessions. PMID:11861571

Discussed here is a new approach to code division multiple access applied to a mobile system for voice (and data) services based on Band Limited Quasi Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (BLQS-CDMA). The system requires users to be chip synchronized to reduce the contribution of self-interference and to make use of voice activation in order to increase the satellite power efficiency. In order to achieve spectral efficiency, Nyquist chip pulse shaping is used with no detection performance impairment. The synchronization problems are solved in the forward link by distributing a master code, whereas carrier forced activation and closed loop control techniques have been adopted in the return link. System performance sensitivity to nonlinear amplification and timing/frequency synchronization errors are analyzed.

The paper considers the performance as well as the effectiveness of multi-token basedaccess protocol for supporting IP over WDM ring network. Both normal ring topology and multi-connected distributed loop such as wheel topology are considered for network simulation and performance optimization.

Cost-effective and tunable chromatic dispersion compensation in a fiber link are still an open issue in metro and access networks to cope with increasing costs and power consumption. Intrinsic chromatic dispersion compensation functionality of optical fractional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing is discussed and experimentally demonstrated using dispersion-tunable transmitter and receiver based on wavelength selective switching devices.

This study identified specific access barriers to seven commonly used in-home and community-based services (CBS) and examined factors that were related to barriers to these services. The data used in this study were extracted from the 1999 National Long Term Care Survey and included 283 dyads of rural older adults and their caregivers. The CBS to…

This paper introduces a novel model of laboratory education, namely the TriLab. The model is based on recent advances in ICT and implements a three access modes to the laboratory experience (virtual, hands-on and remote) in one software package. A review of the three modes is provided with highlights of advantages and disadvantages of each mode.…

This paper introduces a novel model of laboratory education, namely the TriLab. The model is based on recent advances in ICT and implements a three access modes to the laboratory experience (virtual, hands-on and remote) in one software package. A review of the three modes is provided with highlights of advantages and disadvantages of each mode.…

The outcomes of youth accessing residential treatment or intensive home-based treatment are varied. Understanding youth's perceptions of their well-being may inform service. The purpose of this report was to explore perceptions of youth's mental health, life satisfaction, and outlook for the future. Youth reported ongoing struggles with mental…

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a prevalent behaviour among youth. School is an opportune setting for intervention with this population, but it is unknown how many youth who engage in NSSI would be willing to access school-based support. The current study surveyed 7,126 middle and high school students. Those that indicated that they engaged in…

The project presented here explored the possibility of using computer-based systems to increase information access to non-text children's materials at the pre-school through elementary (6th grade) school levels. This final report includes an indicative summary as well as ten separate papers that describe a range of applications of proven computer…

Summarizes results from a study of problems blind people using screen readers and Web browsers experienced when reading tables on the World Wide Web. Explains accessibility factors including complexity of layout, use of HTML programming, features of screen-reading software, and user variables; and makes recommendations for Web-based tables,…

The outcomes of youth accessing residential treatment or intensive home-based treatment are varied. Understanding youth's perceptions of their well-being may inform service. The purpose of this report was to explore perceptions of youth's mental health, life satisfaction, and outlook for the future. Youth reported ongoing struggles with mental…

Discusses the issues involved in the development of bilingual access to Spanish and bilingual materials held by libraries serving the Spanish speaking, with special reference to California. A progress report on the endeavors of the California Spanish Language Data Base is given. Four references are listed. (Author/LLS)

The purpose of this study was an integrated assessment of exposure to benzene and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) in 29 workers employed to manage a controlled-access highways. A campaign was performed in summertime by environmental monitoring (active and passive airborne personal sampler), as well as by biological monitoring (urine samples of the beginning and of the end of daily shift, baseline after two days of vacation). The measured environmental levels did not differ from background environmental concentrations found in a metropolitan area (i.e. benzo[a]pyrene < 1 ng/m3; benzene < 5 mcg/m3), and the results of biological monitoring were in agreement and were compatible with extra-professional habits of the investigated subjects (1-hydroxipyrene 50-990 ng/g creatinine; unmetabolized benzene 15-2010 ng/I; t-t muconic acid < 4-222 mcg/g creatinine).

Internet-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy (ICBT) has been established as both efficacious and effective in reducing symptoms of social anxiety. However, most research has been conducted in controlled settings, and little is known regarding the utility of such programs in an open-access format. The present study examined the use, adherence, and effectiveness of Joyable, an open-access, Internet-delivered, coach-supported CBT-based intervention for social anxiety. Participants were 3,384 registered users (Mage [SD] = 29.82 [7.89]; 54% male) that created an account between 2014 and 2016. Characteristics of use, factors related to attrition and adherence, and within-group outcomes were examined. The primary outcome measure was the Social Phobia Inventory. On average, participants remained in the program for 81.02 days (SD = 60.50), during which they completed 12.14 activities (SD = 11.09) and 1.53 exposures (SD = 3.18). About half (57%) had contact with a coach. Full adherence to the program was achieved by 16% of participants, a rate higher than previously published open-access studies of ICBT. Social anxiety symptoms were significantly reduced for participants that engaged in the program, with medium within-group effects from baseline through the cognitive restructuring module (d = 0.63-0.76) and large effects from baseline through the exposure module (d = 1.40-1.83). Response rates were high (72%). Exposures and coach contact were significant predictors of retention and outcome. This open-access online CBT-based program is effective in reducing social anxiety symptoms and has the potential to extend Internet-based mental health services to socially anxious individuals unwilling or unable to seek face-to-face evidence-based therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Access for endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (EVAR) is obtained through surgical cutdown or percutaneously. The only devices suitable for percutaneous closure of the 20 French arteriotomies of the common femoral artery (CFA) are the Prostar(™) and Proglide(™) devices (Abbott Vascular). Positive effects of these devices seem to consist of a lower infection rate, and shorter operation time and hospital stay. This conclusion was published in previous reports comparing techniques in patients in two different groups (cohort or randomized). Access techniques were never compared in one and the same patient; this research simplifies comparison because patient characteristics will be similar in both groups. Percutaneous access of the CFA is compared to surgical cutdown in a single patient; in EVAR surgery, access is necessary in both groins in each patient. Randomization is performed on the introduction site of the larger main device of the endoprosthesis. The contralateral device of the endoprosthesis is smaller. When we use this type of randomization, both groups will contain a similar number of main and contralateral devices. Preoperative nose cultures and perineal cultures are obtained, to compare colonization with postoperative wound cultures (in case of a surgical site infection). Furthermore, patient comfort will be considered, using VAS-scores (Visual analog scale). Punch biopsies of the groin will be harvested to retrospectively compare skin of patients who suffered a surgical site infection (SSI) to patients who did not have an SSI. The PiERO trial is a multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial designed to show the consequences of using percutaneous access in EVAR surgery and focuses on the occurrence of surgical site infections. NTR4257 10 November 2013, NL44578.042.13.